Past News Archive: Jan-June 2003

         
         

     

Disclaimer of this site

Table of Contents

Research Study Outcomes

Current News Collections

 

Type of Infertility Common in Lesbians
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 30, 2003
 
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Lesbians may be more likely to suffer from a common cause of infertility that is also linked with other health problems, preliminary research suggests.

A study presented Monday at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology is the first to find evidence that polycystic ovarian syndrome is more prevalent among lesbians than heterosexual women.

Dr. Rina Agrawal of the Hallam Medical Center in London said her findings mean family doctors should be aware that lesbian patients could be at higher risk for the disorder and be on the lookout for other health problems that tend to occur more often in such women.

"The main concern is on the wider health aspects, such as obesity, non-insulin dependent (type II) diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, which are much more common" in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, Agrawal said. "Because of medical practices all over the world, lesbian women do tend to be a neglected population, so there are wide health concerns."

Polycystic ovarian syndrome is the most common cause of ovarian malfunction and is estimated to affect between 6 percent and 10 percent of women. Polycystic ovaries are present at birth.

In the condition, the ovary may be oversized and the egg-containing sacs, called follicles, are abnormally strewn in a necklace-like pattern around the edge, while the middle of the ovary thickens.

The syndrome also involves related problems such as acne, obesity, increased body hair, facial hair or, most commonly, irregular periods. Women with the condition also commonly have elevated levels of testosterone.

The study examined 618 women who attended Agrawal's fertility clinic for treatment. Of these, 254 were lesbian and 364 were heterosexual.

The researchers found that 14 percent of the heterosexual women had polycystic ovarian syndrome, compared with 38 percent of the lesbians.

Testosterone levels were also higher in the lesbians than in the heterosexual women.

Experts said more studies are needed to verify the findings.

One important issue is whether the lesbians who ended up at the fertility clinic are representative of the lesbian population as a whole, said Melissa Hines, a professor of psychology at City University in London. She was not connected with the research but has studied sex behaviors in people with hormone abnormalities.

It is possible that lesbians who seek fertility treatment are more likely to have polycystic ovarian syndrome than other lesbians.

Another, more remote possibility, could be that an imbalance of sex hormones might contribute to both the ovary disorder and sexual orientation, Hines said.
[Commentary] The Supreme Court and the two dads
Source: An Advocate.com exclusive posted June 30, 2003
By John Sonego (Director of Communications Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)
 
The Lawrence v. Texas ruling, which overturned all remaining antigay sodomy laws, may not directly affect the lives of two gay dads in Dallas, but it came about because of people just like them: neighbors and taxpayers and now, finally, no longer criminals.

¡§You know, Dallas is the buckle in the Bible Belt,¡¨ my friend Mark said as we drove from the Dallas airport to his house, where I was visiting for the weekend. ¡§So the entire neighborhood is all in a twit because another gay couple moved in. And they¡¦ve got a baby. You should hear what they¡¦re saying.¡¨ 

Sure enough, as we turned onto their street, these two dads were in their yard, playing with their son on a blanket under a big, shady tree. Mark said, ¡§That¡¦s them! Isn¡¦t the baby cute?¡¨ We waved as we drove by, and they smiled and waved back. 

When I read the Supreme Court¡¦s decision on Lawrence v. Texas, my thoughts went immediately to those two happy fathers. As the legal battle has raged and as antigay voices have weighed in, these two Texas men¡Xwith no tangible connection to the Lawrence case¡Xhave simply gone about the business of providing a loving home to a child who needed a family. 

The court¡¦s decision to invalidate all remaining antisodomy laws and to overturn its own 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick ruling means these dads no longer have to grapple with nagging worries about legal harassment as they focus on things that consume the attention of most parents: their child¡¦s education, health, and well-being. 

It¡¦s a victory that happened fundamentally because of them, and it¡¦s a victory that¡¦s really all about them and others like them. Implicit in the court¡¦s decision is a recognition of the vast cultural change that has occurred in the United States over the past three decades. As the last U.S. Census proves, gay people are everywhere. Day after day, we are making courageous decisions to be visible in our communities, our churches, and our workplaces. And this visibility has contributed to a revolution in cultural understanding of who we are. 

In her new book, The Majesty of the Law, Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O¡¦Connor writes, ¡§Real change, when it comes, stems principally from attitudinal shifts in the population at large. Rare indeed is the legal victory¡Xin court or legislature¡Xthat is not a careful by-product of an emerging social consensus. Courts, in particular, are mainly reactive institutions¡Klegal change is most frequently a delayed response to changes in the agenda of the people.¡¨ 

And it is precisely because of the visibility of people like those two dads that a solid and growing majority of Americans believe that gays and lesbians should be afforded legal and cultural equality¡Xand should not be branded as criminals simply for who they are. On June 26 the Supreme Court agreed. 

The court¡¦s decision is a momentous one for all Americans. It acknowledges that being gay or straight is an integral part of a person¡¦s identity. The majority opinion notes, ¡§When sexuality finds overt expression in intimate contact with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make that choice.¡¨ 

This amazing statement makes two separate but equally important points. The first is that sexual expression between two gay people is entitled to the same respect and protection as that between straight people. Second, and perhaps more important, it acknowledges that within gay relationships as well as straight, sex is not necessarily an end unto itself. It can be, and is, part of the foundation of an enduring bond that is the basis for any intimate, loving relationship. 

The Supreme Court has now affirmed our right to exist. Already, some have lined up to decry the court¡¦s decision, claiming that it opens the door to legal endorsement of bestiality, obscenity, and a whole host of other social ills that have absolutely nothing to do with gay and lesbian lives and families. 

For a time, those two Texas dads may continue to be an object of curiosity and possibly scorn among their neighbors. They may face a few raised eyebrows at the supermarket. But never again will they have to face the prospect of being considered criminals just because they love one another. 

And I hope the next time they play with their child on their front lawn, they do so knowing just how much they have contributed to a ruling that moves them and every other American one step closer to the promise of equality. 

John Sonego is the Director of Communications for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an organization dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
 
Gay legal experts assess ruling's impact
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Ann Rostow
Monday, June 30, 2003 / 05:13 PM
 
Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund said it will ride last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas into a new era in the legal battle for gay rights. 

In a phone call with members of the GLBT press on Monday, Executive Director Kevin Cathcart called the court's ruling "profound," one which brings the 13 remaining states with sodomy laws "into the 21st century all at once" and rids the legal community of the most anti-gay opinion in history. Bowers v. Hardwick, once the binding Supreme Court precedent, is now expressly overruled. 

According to Interim Legal Director Patricia Logue, the Lambda lawyers are still in the process of sorting out all the implications of the Lawrence decision. Certainly, she said, the opinion will have a major impact on the types of family law and employment cases that once used sodomy laws as a means to attack gay and lesbian parents and workers. Think of Sharon Bottoms, she recalled, the Virginia mother who lost custody of her son to her mother based on the state sodomy law. Likewise, attorney Robin Shahar was fired by the Georgia Attorney General's office after holding a commitment ceremony, and presumptively violating the state ban on consensual oral sex. 

But the opinion will go even further, weighing heavily on Lambda's side in the continuing fight for parental rights, equal benefits, safe school environments and same-sex marriage. Although the Lawrence opinion defines a right to privacy, rather than a right to equality, Logue observed that the majority "has recognized the dignity of partners and families in a way that is groundbreaking." Lambda's 10 years "of pioneering work for equal marriage rights ? is only strengthened by this court's decision," she said. 

On Friday, Lambda attorneys were in a New Jersey courtroom arguing against the state's motion to dismiss a freedom-to-marry suit filed last year. Activists are anxiously awaiting a gay marriage ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, expected any day. And earlier this year, Lambda filed suit against the state of Nebraska, challenging a constitutional amendment that prohibits a broad range of rights for same-sex couples. The Nebraska law, said Logue on Monday, is "not in keeping with the spirit of the Lawrence decision." 

Although a ruling on the Equal Protection Clause would have directly addressed the question of equality underlying the fight for marriage, the Lawrence decision nonetheless reinforces the idea that gay and lesbian couples have an equal right to liberty, and that morality alone cannot justify a constitutionally deficient law. 

"Equality of treatment and the due process right to ? (privacy) ? are linked in important respects," wrote Justice Kennedy for the majority. "And a decision on the latter point advances both interests." 

Lambda's education director, Michael Adams, said that the Lawrence decision has "galvanized" the GLBT community. Lambda's phones have been ringing off the hook in the last three days, he said, with many people asking what they can do to build on the Lawrence momentum. A new branch of the Lambda Web site, called "forging a new era," suggests ways to "continue the dialogue, to build education, to work through local institutions, through the media, through the schools and through community meetings." 
England considers gay marriage plans
Gay.com U.K.
Monday, June 30, 2003 / 05:14 PM
 
The British government unveiled on Monday proposals for "civil partnerships," which would allow same-sex couples to have the same rights as married couples. 

The proposals, outlined in what's known as a white paper, include extending benefits to same-sex couples such as pension and property rights, provided that couples register their commitment in a civil ceremony. 

Other moves allow next-of-kin rights in hospitals, and exemption from inheritance tax on a partner's home. 

The reforms, if enacted by Parliament, would bring England in line with nine other European countries that grant legal recognition to same-sex partnerships: The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Portugal, France, Germany and Spain. 

According to the Guardian newspaper, The Department of Trade and Industry said there is no timetable for Parliament to act on the white paper's proposals. The public has until Sept. 30 to make their views known.
 
Gay Pride Parades Celebrate Court Victory
Source: Associated Press
JUSTIN GLANVILLE, Associated Press Writer
Sun, Jun 29, 2003
 
NEW YORK - Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) struck down laws against sodomy, gays took to the streets Sunday in Pride parades across the country to celebrated the historic victory. 

"It's a critically important step toward bringing full dignity and rights to gay people," said Ana Oliveira, executive director of Gay Men's Health Crisis, marching in the New York parade along Fifth Avenue. 

"For us, it creates a moment where we come together and we're proud. It reminds all other human beings that we're human beings too," she said. 

The celebrations started Saturday with a few scattered events. In Florida marchers unfurled a 900-foot-long rainbow flag in St. Petersburg and carried a simple sign reading "We are legal" in Orlando. 

The huge annual Pride parades followed on Sunday in cities including San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Chicago and across the border in Toronto. 

"Let's hear it for gay pride. Let's even hear it for the Supreme Court ¡X who ever thought we'd say that?!" Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., told the New York crowd through a megaphone. 

In recent years the events have sometimes been as much about partying as politics. But organizers this year say the Supreme Court ruling adds a special reason to celebrate. 

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law banning sodomy and issued a sweeping opinion that seemed to stake out new ground for gay rights campaigns. The 6-3 decision apparently swept away laws in a dozen states that ban oral and anal sex for everyone, or for homosexuals in particular. 

Laws against gay sex can lead to "discrimination both in the public and the private spheres," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy (news - web sites). Gays and lesbians, he said, are "entitled to respect for their private lives." 

Both supporters and critics of the decision were quick to suggest it could lead to other legal advances for gays and lesbians ¡X including the right to gay marriage ¡X and organizers said a feeling of hope would carry over to the marches and celebrations this weekend. 

In Toronto, a huge street parade Sunday included newly married homosexual couples who traveled to Toronto to get hitched legally. Earlier this month, an Ontario appeals court found the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman to be unconstitutional, and Prime Minister Jean Chretien's government promised a new law legalizing same-sex marriage 

Shawn Harrington, 27, of Tucson, Ariz., and his Canadian partner, Andy Cahyono, 25, exchanged vows in a civil ceremony at the City Hall marriage chapel, witnessed by two members of a gay rights group. 

"We thought we would jump on the chance" to marry in Canada, said Harrington, manager of the Student Union food services at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He said he didn't expect conservative Arizona to consider same-sex marriage any time soon. 

In San Francisco, Joey Cain, president of the board of directors of SF Pride, said the high court's ruling is "first and foremost in people's minds." 

"The parade has always been about gay liberation," he said. "There will be quite a sense of celebration." 

The gay community in San Francisco got a jump on the festivities Saturday, staging a huge commitment ceremony for gay couples downtown and unveiling a huge pink triangle in the hills above the city. 

"We have a lot to celebrate at this year's Pride," said Molly McKay, a spokeswoman for the group Marriage Equality California. 

"It's a coming of age," McKay said. "This is a glorious and beautiful time to be queer."
 
Frist Endorses Idea of Gay Marriage Ban
Source: AP on US Congress
By WILLIAM C. MANN, Associated Press Writer
June 29, 2003
 
WASHINGTON - The Senate majority leader said Sunday he supported a proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage in the United States. 

Sen. Bill Frist (news, bio, voting record), R-Tenn., said the Supreme Court's decision last week on gay sex threatens to make the American home a place where criminality is condoned. 

The court on Thursday threw out a Texas law that prohibited acts of sodomy between homosexuals in a private home, saying that such a prohibition violates the defendants' privacy rights under the Constitution. The ruling invalidated the Texas law and similar statutes in 12 other states. 

"I have this fear that this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually ¡X or I'm concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned," Frist told ABC's "This Week." 

"And I'm thinking of ¡X whether it's prostitution or illegal commercial drug activity in the home ¡X ... to have the courts come in, in this zone of privacy, and begin to define it gives me some concern." 

Asked whether he supported an amendment that would ban any marriage in the United States except a union of a man and a woman, Frist said: "I absolutely do, of course I do. 

"I very much feel that marriage is a sacrament, and that sacrament should extend and can extend to that legal entity of a union between ¡X what is traditionally in our Western values has been defined ¡X as between a man and a woman. So I would support the amendment." 

Same-sex marriages are legal in Belgium and the Netherlands. Canada's Liberal government announced two weeks ago that it would enact similar legislation soon. 

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., was the main sponsor of the proposal offered May 21 to amend the Constitution. It was referred to the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution on Wednesday, the day before the high court ruled. 

As drafted, the proposal says: 

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any state under state or federal law shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." 

To be added to the Constitution, the proposal must be approved by two-thirds of the House and the Senate and ratified by three-fourths of the states. 

Frist said Sunday he respects the Supreme Court decision but feels the justices overstepped their bounds. 

"Generally, I think matters such as sodomy should be addressed by the state legislatures," Frist said. "That's where those decisions ¡X with the local norms, the local mores ¡X are being able to have their input in reflected. 

"And that's where it should be decided, and not in the courts."
 
[Editorial] Behind closed doors: High court ruling a victory for liberty
Source: The Sacramento Bee
Bee Editorial Staff
June 28, 2003
 
Seventeen years after it upheld a Georgia anti-sodomy law that trampled the privacy rights and basic freedoms of not just homosexual couples but all consenting adults, the U.S. Supreme Court has righted a wrong and restored to private relationships the respect they deserve.
Writing for the 6-3 majority in a Texas case involving two men who were arrested for engaging in a consensual sex act in a private apartment, Justice Anthony Kennedy forthrightly lamented "the court's \[past\] failure to appreciate the extent of the liberty at stake."

The decision, in a case called Lawrence vs. Texas, struck down a Texas law barring sodomy between same-sex couples. It also repudiated the court's reasoning in the Georgia case, known as Bowers vs. Hardwick, that had stood as an insult to couples, both gay and straight.

"The laws involved in Bowers and here are, to be sure, statutes that purport to do no more than prohibit a particular sexual act," Kennedy wrote. "Their penalties and purposes, though, have more far-reaching consequences, touching upon the most private human conduct, sexual behavior, and in the most private of places, the home. The statues do seek to control a personal relationship that, whether or not entitled to formal recognition in the law, is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals."

Yet most states, at various times in their history, have had anti-sodomy laws on their books. California repealed its anti-sodomy law in 1976. Thirteen states still ban consensual sodomy (for both gay and straight couples) and four -- Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas -- prohibit sodomy only between same-sex couples. Those laws are now history.

Unlike in Texas, most states consider the laws relics of another time and don't enforce them. But enforced or not, they have amounted to a kind of dehumanizing government nannyism toward consenting adults whose private sexual behavior -- so long as it harms no one -- is nobody's business but their own.
[Editorials] A victory for privacy
source: The Times-Picayune
Friday June 27, 2003
 
State governments never had any business regulating what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. But laws forbidding oral and anal sex attempted to do just that, and in doing so they exposed people to criminal prosecution for no good reason. 

By a 6-3 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to such intrusions Thursday when it overturned a Texas anti-sodomy law, which applied only to same-sex acts. Writing for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy declared that adults have the liberty to conduct their private lives as they see fit. 

But the ruling went further: Justice Kennedy argued that the Texas law was "an invitation to subject gay people to discrimination" in a variety of ways. He acknowledged that many Americans hold religious beliefs and other convictions that condemn homosexuality, but he questioned whether even a majority could "enforce these views on the whole society via the operation of the criminal law." 

The court explicitly overruled the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, which upheld state anti-sodomy laws in general and bans on homosexual acts in particular. 

The decision struck down laws banning homosexual conduct in Texas and three other states. The decision also affects nine other states, including Louisiana, that ban sodomy altogether. 

Attorney General Richard Ieyoub said Thursday that provisions of the Louisiana anti-sodomy law that apply to the private conduct of consenting adults will be unenforceable, though provisions relating to prostitution and bestiality remain intact. 

Louisiana's prohibition on certain private, consensual sexual acts undermines respect for law in two ways: It criminalizes conduct in which a great many people engage with no adverse consequences to anyone, and it goes unenforced, except in the rarest and most arbitrary of circumstances. It tells citizens, in effect, that they are less qualified to judge what ought to go on in Louisiana's bedrooms than politicians, police and prosecutors are. 

In a dissenting opinion in the Texas case, Justice Antonin Scalia accused the majority of signing on to "the so-called homosexual agenda." More substantively, dissenters argued that, whether the Texas law was wise or not, the court had no basis for striking it down. Justice Clarence Thomas added, though, that if he were a member of the Texas Legislature, he would vote for a repeal. 

To be sure, Louisiana legislators would have been wise to get rid of the law of their own volition. Unfortunately, state lawmakers rejected attempts to repeal the ban in years past, and this year they rejected a bill by state Sen. Lynn Dean that would have exempted private conduct among consenting adults. 

Unless the federal courts intervene, some bad state laws that infringe on individual freedom would stand forever. 

People who value their privacy have reason to be pleased by Thursday's decision. As Sen. Dean told the Associated Press in response to the Supreme Court action, "We've now got a little bit more freedom in this land we call the land of the free."
 
Court ruling ushers in overdue rights for gays
Source: Op/Ed - USA TODAY
Fri Jun 27, 7:41 AM ET
 
In overturning a seldom-enforced Texas law banning sex between homosexuals, the Supreme Court handed gay men and women a major legal victory. Yet Thursday's ruling also calls attention to the fact that hundreds of other state laws continue to permit discrimination based on an individual's sexual preferences.

In most states, gay couples have no right to own property jointly, visit each other in the hospital, make a deceased partner's funeral arrangements or share legal responsibility for raising children. No matter how many years they may have lived in a loving and committed relationship, the gay men or women who share the house down the block are denied the legal protections and economic benefits enjoyed by their heterosexual neighbors.

While the high court's ruling affirmed only the privacy rights of gays, the decision can give momentum to efforts to end broader discrimination against homosexuals. In so doing, it could help bring the nation closer to the Constitution's promise of equal protection under the law for all.

The ruling -- which reversed a 1986 decision upholding a Texas ban on gay sex -- comes as Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court is expected to rule within weeks on a suit by seven same-sex couples claiming discrimination. They say hundreds of protections are given only to heterosexual couples, despite the state constitution's assurance that "all people are born free and equal." A similar case is pending in New Jersey.

Those opposed to equal treatment of gay couples warn that it would put the sanctity of marriage at risk. That's the same justification used in the 19th century to deny legal rights to married women and treat them as virtual property of their husbands. Such discrimination ended only after a long and passionate struggle. And still marriage survives.

The extent of the discrimination against gays was documented in a lawsuit that won equal rights for same-sex couples in Vermont three years ago. It itemized more than 300 benefits and safeguards in state law, and 1,000 in federal law, limited to heterosexuals. They included property rights, child custody, confidentiality of conversations, domestic violence protection, numerous tax advantages and wrongful-death benefits.

No other state has copied Vermont's law allowing gay "civil unions" with all the benefits that the state accords traditional marriages, but California is moving in that direction. The state assembly this month approved legislation to grant same-sex partners most spousal rights -- and responsibilities -- of married couples. Action is pending in the state Senate.

And Canada's government announced last week that it will legalize same-sex unions. The move comes after courts in three provinces ruled that limiting marital rights to heterosexuals was unconstitutional.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites), who joined the majority in rejecting Texas' law, wrote that branding people criminals based on "moral disapproval" of their conduct "runs contrary to the values of the Constitution."
In fact, moral objections have long been at the root of laws that denied gay people jobs, protection from hate crimes or the right to visit their children. Thursday's decision is an important step toward hastening the end of this unwarranted discrimination.
 
[Analysis] A Debate on Marriage, And More, Now Looms
Source: The Washington Post
By David Von Drehle (Washington Post Staff Writer)
Friday, June 27, 2003; Page A01
 
The Supreme Court ruling to strike down the nation's anti-sodomy laws combined two of the most contentious issues on the political landscape by grounding the liberty of gays in the same legal turf that sustains the right to abortion -- and it directly points to yet another clash in the culture war: a fight over gay marriage.

The decision did not spell out what this could mean for laws banning gay marriage, gay adoption and related controversies. But dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia warned from the bench that the constitutional grounds for maintaining those prohibitions are now gone.

"It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war," Scalia declared, taking the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench. He savaged the passing statement by the majority that the sodomy law decision had nothing to do with the gay marriage issue. "Do not believe it," he warned.

Lawrence v. Texas could have implications far beyond the closed doors of private homes. In an unexpectedly large step, the court said traditional morality is no justification for making legal distinctions among sexual behaviors of consenting adults. "The fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote, quoting approvingly from his colleague Justice John Paul Stevens.

And in at least one earlier precedent, the realm of private, intimate life has been defined by the Supreme Court to include "marriage...family relationships [and] child rearing."

At the same time, marriage and adoption are more public matters than the intimacies the court was dealing with in the Texas case. Other grounds, beyond morals alone, might be found to justify continuing those prohibitions if states choose to do so.

That's the next fight.

It could come quickly. Gay rights lawyers recently filed suit in federal court challenging new wording in Nebraska's constitution banning gay marriage; yesterday's decision should strengthen their case. According to the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the decision "begins an entirely new chapter" in the campaign for gay rights, including the right to marry. Executive Director Kevin M. Cathcart stressed the broader impacts of the decision, saying, "This historic civil rights ruling promises real equality to gay people in our relationships, our families and our everyday lives.

Cathcart's organization plans to take the weekend to hatch strategy and will announce on Monday "its aggressive plan for turning this landmark ruling into a reality."

Across the cultural divide, Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family's vice president of public policy, predicted that "if the people have no right to regulate sexuality then ultimately the institution of marriage is in peril, and with it, the welfare of the coming generations of children."

Many observers had predicted that the court would find very narrow grounds to throw out a Texas law that criminalized sodomy for homosexuals only. After all, with a few notable exceptions, the high court has been reluctant over the past 25 years to write controversial decisions in broad strokes.

The court of the 1950s, '60s and '70s -- an era shaped by Chief Justice Earl Warren and that legendary builder of liberal majorities, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. -- painted with a bold brush on issues ranging from civil rights to school prayer, from capital punishment to abortion. The justices became heroes to many and infuriated many others.

The court of the 1980s, '90s and today -- an era shaped by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the increasingly dominant builder of centrist majorities, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- has rolled back some of those decisions and shored up others. But the court has generally preferred to hunt for fresh controversies in abstract realms such as federalism and original intent where any outrage stirred up is registered in law review articles, not on billboards.

But the majority opinion in Lawrence went back to the earlier era for its inspiration. Drawing on the 1965 case that found a right to contraception and the 1973 case that found a right to abortion, Kennedy said that the "right to privacy" also applies to homosexuals. "Adults may choose to enter upon this relationship in the confines of their homes and their private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons," he wrote. "The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice."

With that, the court overturned a 1986 decision that had rejected the right-to-privacy argument for same-sex relationships. O'Connor voted with the 1986 majority, and she declined to repudiate that position yesterday. But she added a separate, sixth, vote for the new rule that legal distinctions between heterosexual relations and homosexual relations cannot be made on purely moral grounds.

"Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest under the Equal Protection Clause," she wrote.

Scalia, Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, in their dissents, said the step, if it was going to be taken, should have been left to the state legislatures. "Were I a member of the Texas legislature, I would vote to repeal" the sodomy law, Thomas wrote.

Legislatures "unlike judges, need not carry things to their logical conclusion," Scalia noted. They can legalize "private homosexual acts" while continuing to prohibit gay marriage if they wish. "The Court today pretends that it possesses a similar freedom."

Soon enough, America will find out. 
 
Supreme Court Strikes Down Gay Sex Ban
Associated Press
By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2003
 
WASHINGTON - What gay men and women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business and not the government's, the Supreme Court said Thursday in a historic civil rights ruling striking down bans on what some states have called deviate sex acts. 

Gay rights advocates called the ruling, by a 6-3 vote, the most important legal advance ever for gay people in the United States. 

Two gay men arrested after police walked in on them having sex "are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime." 

In a lengthy, strongly worded dissent, the three most conservative justices called the ruling a huge mistake that showed the court had been co-opted by the "so-called homosexual agenda." 


"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Justice Antonin Scalia (news - web sites) wrote for the three, suggesting the ruling would invite laws allowing same-sex marriages. 


The court voted to strike down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime. The law allows police to arrest gays for oral or anal sex, conduct that would be legal for heterosexuals. 

Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four ¡X Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri ¡X prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. 

Thursday's ruling invalidates all of those laws, lawyers said. 

The case was the most significant of several released on the last day of the court's 2002-2003 term. Justices often choose the last day to announce if they plan to retire, but no one did so Thursday. 

In strikingly broad and contrite language, the court overturned an earlier ruling that had upheld sodomy laws on moral grounds. 

The Constitution's framers "knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," Kennedy wrote. 

Laws forbidding homosexual sex were once universal but now are rare. Those on the books have been rarely enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers for the two Texas men had argued to the court. 

"This is unquestionably the most important gay rights case ever," said Matt Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites). 

"The court is saying that personal relationships, intimate relationships that ... give your life meaning, that gay people have the same right to those relationships that everyone else does." 

Houston District Attorney Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., who argued in favor of the law before the high court, called the ruling a major departure from earlier court statements. 

"I am disappointed that the Supreme Court (majority) did not allow the people of the state of Texas, through their elected legislators, to determine moral standards of governance for this state." 

Texas had defended its sodomy law as in keeping with the state's interest in protecting marriage and child-rearing. Homosexual sodomy, the state argued, "has nothing to do with marriage or conception or parenthood and it is not on a par with these sacred choices." 

Justices John Paul Stevens (news - web sites), David Souter (news - web sites), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (news - web sites) and Stephen Breyer (news - web sites) agreed with Kennedy in full. 

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites) agreed with the outcome of the case but would have decided it on different constitutional grounds. She also did not join in reversing the court's 1986 ruling on the same subject. 

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas (news - web sites) dissented. 

The court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the three. He took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench. 

Although the majority opinion said the case did not "involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter," Scalia said the ruling could open the way to laws allowing gay marriage. 

"This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples," Scalia wrote. 

The ruling also threatens laws banning bestiality, bigamy and incest, he wrote. 

Thomas wrote separately to say that while he considered the Texas law at issue "uncommonly silly," he could not agree to strike it down because he found no general right to privacy in the Constitution. 

Thomas calls himself a strict adherent to the actual words of the Constitution as opposed to modern-day interpretations. If he were a Texas legislator and not a judge, Thomas said, he would vote to repeal the law. 

"Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources," he wrote. 

The two men at the heart of the case, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, were each fined $200 and spent a night in jail for the misdemeanor sex charge in 1998. 

The case began when a neighbor with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was "going crazy" in Lawrence's apartment. Police went to the apartment, pushed open the door and found the two men. 

"This ruling lets us get on with our lives and it opens the door for gay people all over the country," Lawrence said Thursday. 

As recently as 1960, every state had an anti-sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed by lawmakers or blocked by state courts. 

The Supreme Court was widely criticized 17 years ago when it upheld a Georgia antisodomy law similar to that of Texas. The ruling became a rallying point for gay activists. 

Of the nine justices who ruled on the 1986 case, only three remain on the court. Rehnquist was in the majority in that case ¡X Bowers v. Hardwick ¡X as was O'Connor. Stevens dissented. 

"Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today," Kennedy wrote for the majority Thursday. 

Kennedy noted that the current case does not involve minors or anyone who might be unable or reluctant to refuse a homosexual advance. 

"The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. Their right to liberty under (the Constitution) gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government." 

The case is Lawrence v. Texas, 02-102. 
Dragging us down
From The Advocate
By Sue Rochman
July 8, 2003

New studies suggest that you¡¦re not alone in your blues¡Xin fact, gay people actually may be more prone to depression than heterosexuals
 
We¡¦re out. We¡¦re proud. We¡¦re on Prozac?

It¡¦s been nearly 30 years since the American Psychiatric Association ceased listing homosexuality as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders¡Xsaying that gay people are not mentally ill and are not more likely to have mental health problems.

Now part of that long-held position is being called into question. As a panel of researchers reported at the APA¡¦s annual meeting in San Francisco in May, the latest studies suggest that lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults appear to be more likely than heterosexual adults to experience depression and anxiety.

These studies, which are based on analyses of large national surveys, contradict years of previous research, which most often focused on subjects culled from gay pride events and through advertisements in the gay press.

The discrepancy stems, in part, from the different methodologies¡Xboth of which have their pluses and minuses, researchers say. The latest studies, analyzing the national health surveys, best represent the whole population. Still, the percentage of respondents who identify as gay or lesbian is relatively small. In one study, for example, only 74 of the 2,917 adults questioned identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

In contrast, the earlier studies, which focused specifically on gay people, naturally have larger percentages of gay-identified participants. But because the subjects were recruited from gay pride events and through the gay media, they are less likely to represent the gay and lesbian population as a whole.

To be sure, not all gay people who are depressed say it¡¦s linked to their sexual orientation. In some instances depression can be biological. In other instances it can be situational¡Xdue to a breakup, an HIV diagnosis, or the unexpected pink slip. But researchers say it is also possible that these factors only compound the stress that gay people experience as members of a minority group.

¡§Minority stress is socially based and stems from an environment characterized by prejudice,¡¨ says Ilan Meyer, an assistant professor of clinical sociomedical sciences at Columbia University. ¡§It is experienced on top of the other stressors people have in their lives, and it can affect a person's mental health¡¨¡Xincluding their risk for depression.

The theory of minority stress could explain why recent studies have found higher rates of depression in bisexual men and women, who often feel isolated from both gay and straight populations. In addition, it underscores how being part of a supportive community can be critical for your mental health.

"Being part of an LGBT community may be protective against depression," says Esther Rothblum, a University of Vermont psychology professor. This might be one reason the studies conducted on people at pride parades¡Xtraditionally supportive events¡Xdid not find higher depression rates, she says.

Of course, even people who are completely out can experience homophobia. And, according to Queer Blues: The Lesbian & Gay Guide to Overcoming Depression, up to 1.7 million gay men and lesbians suffer from depression. "I was running a support group for gay men with depression," says Braden Berkey, director of behavioral health services at Chicago's Howard Brown Health Center. "These guys lived in Boystown and worked in professions that were accepting of who they were. So in terms of minority stress, you wouldn't expect it to be there." But as the group continued to meet, he says, the conversations turned to the anger the participants had because of the restraints they felt as a result of their sexual orientation.

Although antidepressants do help many people suffering from depression, some psychotherapists are concerned that these new studies will cause some doctors to simply encourage their gay patients to ¡§take a pill¡¨ rather than push for public policies targeted at reducing discrimination and minority stress.

¡§I think it is important for lesbians and gay men not to neglect the cultural context for how they feel,¡¨ says Marny Hall, a San Francisco¡Vbased psychotherapist and coauthor of the book Queer Blues. ¡§There is an overemphasis on biology and on antidepressants that makes the problem become serotonin rather than homophobia.¡¨

The need to talk about homophobia will undoubtedly become even more important if researchers continue to find that gay people are at higher risk for depression. ¡§GLBT psychologists have worked so hard to destigmatize and depathologize our orientations and gender expressions that it is hard to now turn it around and say, ¡¥Yes, in and of itself, being lesbian or gay is not a pathological state¡Xbut the incidence of depression is higher in our populations,¡¦¡¨ Berkey says. ¡§But what we need to emphasize is that there is nothing inherent about being GLBT that makes you more likely to be mentally ill. It is something about being GLBT in our society.¡¨

Rochman is editor at large for HIV Plus.
Privacy call in gay bishop row
Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2003/06/21 16:23:06 GMT
A bishop has called for the row over the controversial appointment of a gay priest as Bishop of Reading to be resolved away from the media spotlight.  
 
The Bishop of Leicester, Timothy Stevens, said the time had come for the two factions to discuss the issue privately - a process which would take a long time. He is one of eight Anglican bishops who have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, saying the selection of Canon Jeffrey John has their full confidence. Dr John's appointment has been described as "catastrophic" for the Church of England by evangelical and conservative opponents. On Saturday, the Rt Rev Stevens told BBC News he regretted the way the debate had been conducted.
We're talking about people who are seeking to listen to the Word of God rather than the voice of culture Reverend David Bunting Reform.
 
"A number of us feel that we all now need to get back to the serious discussion in which we try to discern God's will for us and that's going to take a long time. "This will be best done out of the glare of the media, which is where we need to be for the next few years as we try to work this one out." His words follow intense media coverage of the row since a group of nine bishops wrote a letter to the Times at the start of the week, opposing Dr John's appointment. Dr John has been in a relationship with a man for 27 years but says he is now celibate.
 
'Catastrophic'
 
On Friday, a group of evangelical and conservative Angelicans met the Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, who selected Dr John, in a final attempt to try to change his mind.
 
After the meeting, both Bishop Harries and Dr Philip Giddings, spokesman for the opposing Church representatives, made live statements on BBC News 24. Dr Giddings said the appointment would be "catastrophic in terms of the unity of the Church of England", while Bishop Harries declared his "unswerving" support for Dr John. Dr John has himself made public statements about his relationship, both to the Times and on the Diocese of Oxford website. On the website, he described his "life partnership" as a "gift and vocation from God". In their letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the eight mainly liberal bishops supporting Dr John said his promotion will enrich Church debate about homosexuality. The Bishop of Hereford, John Oliver, who is one of the eight signatories, said Dr John's lifestyle was fully compatible with the position the Church had agreed 12 years ago.
 
Fighting on
 
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Bishop Oliver said: "Dr John made a very careful, very full and very moving statement two days ago in which he made it quite clear that he was fully in line with what the nine bishops were asking for. "We [the Church] recognise that for some people to be in a loving, faithful and exclusive same sex relationship is the best thing that they can do. "We made a distinction between what it was appropriate for lay people to do and clergy to do and we required clergy to be celibate but they can still be in a loving, faithful same sex friendship." BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Piggott says the letter to Dr Williams seems intended to dispel any impression Dr John's appointment had met general hostility in a church dominated by conservatives and evangelicals. Dr John's opponents, who number 80 clergy and 20 leading laity within the diocese of Oxford, have also promised to take their fight to Dr Williams.
 
HIV infects 3 percent of gays in Beijing
Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Friday, June 20, 2003 / 05:01 PM
 
A new study of men who have sex with men in China -- where HIV/AIDS threatens to explode in the next decade -- suggests that roughly 3 percent of gay and bisexual men in the nation's capital city have HIV.
 
According to a Reuters Health report, researchers interviewed 481 men in Beijing who said they had sex with men. The individuals received HIV tests, and 15 men, or 3.1 percent, were infected with the AIDS-causing virus.
 
The researchers, led by Dr. Kyung-Hee Choi of the University of California, San Francisco, noted that nearly half of the group had unprotected anal sex with a man in the previous six months, and 22 percent had unprotected anal or vaginal sex with a woman during the same time period.
 
In addition, men over 39 years of age were 4.5 times more likely to be infected with HIV than younger men. The ratio reportedly disturbed the scientists because the older men were more likely to have been married and could "contribute to the sexual transmission of HIV to heterosexually active adults."
 
The findings are reported in the June 21 issue of The Lancet.
 
Little data is available about China's gay and bisexual population. China only recently admitted that it's facing an HIV/AIDS crisis, and the United Nations estimates that 800,000 to 1.5 million Chinese were infected by the end of 2001. The number could explode to 10 million by 2010, the U.N. has warned, if the country does not act quickly to fight the epidemic.
 
Gephardt daughter stumps in California
Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Thursday, June 19, 2003 / 05:31 PM
 
Chrissy Gephardt, the first openly gay child of a major presidential candidate, began stumping for her father's 2004 presidential campaign on Wednesday in San Francisco and highlighting his gay-friendly views.
 
She met with Democratic supporters and gay community leaders, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and stressed that Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., is just as strong on GLBT issues as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
Dean is considered by many to be the frontrunner on GLBT issues, in part because he signed Vermont's civil union law, but Chrissy Gephardt dismissed the notion as a "stereotype" and said that Dean's and her father's views on such issues as civil unions, gay adoption and AIDS funding are nearly identical.
 
She and her father don't have identical views on gay marriage, however.
 
"He knows that I support gay marriage," Gephardt, 30, told the Chronicle. "He supports civil unions. He's for equal protection of gay relationships under the law. But I think that, obviously, I'd like to get married."
 
Gephardt lives with her partner, Amy, in Washington, D.C., where both are social workers.
 
On Thursday she talked up her father's campaign with GLBT political leaders in Los Angeles.
 
While it is still early in the 2004 presidential campaign season, many observers predict that GLBT issues, such as gay marriage and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, will have a higher profile in the election. Eight of the nine declared Democratic candidates, for example, have already stated their support for repealing "don't ask, don't tell."
 
Study: Females get aroused by both sexes
Source: Planetout.com
By Randy Dotinga, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Thursday, June 19, 2003
 
SUMMARY: A new study confirms what researchers have suspected for some time -- women may prefer to date one gender or the other, but they get sexually aroused by both.
 
It's no surprise that lesbians like to watch lesbian pornography. But the big news in a new study is that they also get turned on by watching heterosexuals and gay men have sex.
 
And straight women? They like it all, too.
 
The findings confirm what researchers have suspected for some time -- women may prefer to date one gender or the other, but they get sexually aroused by both.
 
Men, on the other hand, aren't nearly as flexible. Straight men like to watch women have sex, and gay men like to watch men. Case closed.
 
"This may well be relevant to the flexibility of female sexuality. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one reason why women transition more between sexual identities than men," said study co-author Michael Bailey, chairman of the psychology department at Northwestern University and author of "The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism."
 
In his study, completed over several years, Bailey and colleagues recruited 69 men and 52 women, both heterosexual and homosexual, to watch two-minute snippets of X-rated movies in a laboratory.
 
The men hooked themselves up to a rubber-band-like device that detected erections by measuring the thickness of the penis. The women used a small device that shines a light into the vagina and detects reflected light. According to Bailey, the vagina becomes darker during arousal.
 
The videos featured various types of sex (vaginal, oral and anal) and various types of partners (male-male, female-female, male-female).
 
The researchers will report their findings in an upcoming edition of the journal Psychological Science. They released an early report this month.
 
Heterosexual men were most stimulated by watching lesbian sex, followed by heterosexual sex. The gay men responded most to male erotica.
 
But the women -- straight or lesbian -- tended to enjoy watching all the types of partners have sex. Only 63 percent responded most to sex involving their preferred gender, a much lower number than among the men.
 
The study findings confirm the experiences of many women who find themselves suddenly developing a new sexual orientation, said Lisa Diamond, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Utah.
 
"With women, the experience of sexual attraction doesn't revolve around the gender of the partner as it does around other things," she explained. "Women say, 'I didn't think I was attracted to women , and then all of a sudden, boom!' This fluidity does not appear to be as common among men."
 
The next step, Bailey said, is to study sexual arousal among bisexuals. Initial research suggests that bisexual men share something in common with straight and gay men -- they're significantly aroused by one gender more than the other.
 
HIV patients say pot helps mental health
Source: Planetout.com
Laurence Gibson, Positive Nation
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 / 04:48 PM
 
Clinical research studying the reasons why HIV-positive people smoke marijuana has come up with some surprising results: More smoke for mental rather than physical reasons.
 
The research, from the San Mateo Medical Center in California, was presented last month at the American Psychiatric Association conference.
 
"We expected to see people smoking marijuana to alleviate nausea, pain and to increase their appetite -- all the reasons that are commonly cited," said Diane Prentiss, a research epidemiologist with the center. "In this case, we were surprised that 57 percent say they smoked to relieve anxiety or depression."
 
The researchers surveyed 252 HIV patients. From that number, 23 percent, or 58 patients, admitted to smoking pot in the previous four weeks.
 
When asked for the main reasons why they used the drug, respondents cited mental health issues most often. Curbing nausea and increasing appetite was the second, with 52 percent. Recreational use came in third with 33 percent, followed by pain relief with 28 percent.
 
The findings raise some interesting questions, said Dr. Dennis Israelski, chief research officer at the Medical Center.
"In terms of understanding the whole field, it is safe to say that there is a fair amount of self-medication that physicians are not aware of," he told the San Francisco Examiner. "It does speak to whether it's appropriate medication. Are physicians doing a good enough job when patients are using outside medication? Do we have better treatments for anxiety and depression? These are very important issues related to quality of life."
 
Israelski noted that, according to various studies, mental health often influences a patient's ability to adhere to the strict therapeutic regimens for HIV/AIDS.
 
He added that more scientific studies about marijuana's effects are necessary, but the drug's illegal status has hampered research.
 
National Survey Reveals Gays and Lesbians are Frequent and Discerning Business Travelers
Source: Witeckcombs.com
June 17, 2003 - 04:58pm
 
National Survey Reveals Gays and Lesbians are requent and Discerning Business Travelers

New Online Poll By Witeck-Combs Communications/Harris Interactive Also Confirms That Gay Consumers Consider Cost, Location and Fair Treatment Most When Choosing Travel Accommodations 

Rochester, NY - June 18, 2003 - According to the most recent consumer research study by Witeck-Combs Communications and Harris Interactive? gay,
lesbian and bisexual (GLB) ?individuals tend to take more business trips than their non-gay counterparts. In addition, gays, lesbians and bisexuals list cost, location and fair treatment as the most important factors when choosing a hotel for either business or pleasure trips. 

NOTE: Full tables with the sample data are available upon request, or may be
found by visiting the newsroom at www.witeckcombs.com

"These findings are not surprising," said Wesley Combs, president of Witeck-Combs Communications. "Because only 20% of GLB households have children, it may be that GLB employees have fewer conflicts when it comes to business travel. Given this assumption, they may more readily volunteer or might possibly be asked to take more business trips." 

GLB consumers report taking an average of seven business trips a year, compared to the two business trips reported by their non-gay counterparts. 
Eleven percent (11%) of GLB consumers indicated taking between three and five business trips in the last year, while six percent indicated taking more than ten. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of GLB consumers reported taking no business trips at all in the past year, compared to 65 percent of their
non-gay counterparts.

When choosing travel accommodations for business or pleasure, GLB consumers overwhelmingly indicated that cost and location are the most important factors in deciding where to stay. In addition, one in five GLB business travelers (22%) said that one of their top three concerns when choosing a hotel is fair treatment of guests 'like me,' while 30% of GLB pleasure travelers also named fair treatment as one of their top three concerns. 

"It is increasingly important for hotels to create a welcoming and respectful environment for all of their guests, including GLB customers," added Combs. "In a competitive travel market, it is apparent that those who focus on customer service and who sensitively and professionally include GLB guests will earn their share of this trackable market." 

According to Rick Cirillo, American Airlines' global sales manager for the gay and lesbian community, the new research "mirrors our experience and underscores why the gay business traveler is so highly sought after. We have learned the benefit of American's gay-friendly policies and practices, which welcome these discriminating travelers who have many choices in air travel."

When GLB consumers were asked about their future international travel plans, one in ten (10%) indicated plans to travel to Europe in 2003 for personal reasons or for pleasure. When asked where in Europe they would like to travel, 21 percent of GLB consumers indicated that the British Isles are
their European destination of choice, while 13 percent preferred Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Five percent (5%) favored Eastern European countries, such as Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic, while only two percent (2%) mentioned Italy or Greece.

These are a few highlights of a nationwide Witeck-Combs Communications/Harris Interactive study of 3,462 adults, of whom five percent (5%) self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual. The survey was
conducted online between May 19 and 25, 2003 by Harris Interactive, a worldwide market research and consulting firm, in conjunction with Witeck-Combs Communications, Inc., a strategic public relations and marketing communications firm with special expertise in the GLB market. 

Methodology

This study was conducted online within the United States between May 19 and 25, 2003, among a nationwide cross section of 3,462 adults. Of those adults surveyed, 184, or approximately five percent, self-identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual (GLB). Figures for age, sex, race, education, region and
income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. "Propensity score" weighting was also
used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online. 

In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results have a statistical precision of plus or
minus two percentage points (for the overall sample) and plus or minus ten percentage points (for the GLB sample) of what they would be if the entire adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. Unfortunately, there are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (non-response), question wording and question order, interviewer bias, weighting by demographic control data and screening (e.g., for likely voters). It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. This online survey is not a probability sample.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Previous research conducted by Witeck-Combs Communications and Harris Interactive queried gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) self-identified respondents. Although we remain
interested in the consumer attitudes and characteristics of transgendered individuals, for accuracy and consistency we now distinguish sexual
orientation from gender identity.

About Witeck-Combs Communications, Inc.
Witeck-Combs Communications, Inc. ( www.witeckcombs.com
<http://www.witeckcombs.com/> ) is the nation's premier strategic marketing
communications firm, specializing in reaching the gay and lesbian consumer
market. With over nine years experience in this unique market, Witeck-Combs
Communications has developed respected relationships throughout the
community and serves as a bridge between corporate America and gay and
lesbian consumers. In April 2003, American Demographics magazine identified
Bob Witeck and Wes Combs as two of 25 experts over the last 25 years who
have made significant contributions to the fields of demographics, market
research, media and trendspotting for their pathbreaking work on the gay and
lesbian market. 

About Harris Interactive?
Harris Interactive ( www.harrisinteractive.com) is a worldwide market research and consulting firm best known for The Harris Poll? and for pioneering the Internet method to conduct scientifically accurate market research.
Headquartered in Rochester, New York, U.S.A., Harris Interactive combines proprietary methodologies and technology with expertise in predictive, custom and strategic research. The Company conducts international research
through wholly owned subsidiaries-London-based HI Europe ( www.hieurope.com ) and Tokyo-based Harris Interactive Japan-as well as through the Harris Interactive Global Network of local market- and opinion-research firms, and various U.S. offices. EOE M/F/D/V 

To become a member of the Harris Poll Online and be invited to participate
in future online surveys, visit www.harrispollonline.com.

Press Contacts:
Nancy Wong
Harris Interactive
585-214-7316
nwong@harrisinteractive.com <mailto:nwong@harrisinteractive.com> 

Wesley Combs
Witeck-Combs Communications
202-887-0500 ext. 14 or (cell) 202-439-1827 wcombs@witeckcombs.com
<mailto:wcombs@witeckcombs.com> 
Huge rainbow flag unfurled in Key West
Gay.com U.K.
Monday, June 16, 2003 / 04:50 PM
 
The world's longest rainbow flag was unfurled in Florida on Sunday as part of Key West Pride, stretching from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico and requiring 2,000 people to hold it.
 
Made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original rainbow flag and commissioned from the original flag's creator Gilbert Baker, the finished flag was a mile and a quarter long, used over 17,000 yards of material and weighed more than three tons.
 
The huge flag was also the first to use the eight-color design originally conceived by Baker a quarter of a century ago. The turquoise and pink bands were dropped years ago because the colors were not commercially available.
 
"My dream is a reality today," said Baker at the Key West PrideFest. "The rainbow flag is loved and cherished all over the world. It represents an idea of equality and justice for everyone."
 
The massive flag will now be divided up, with portions of the new eight-color flag forming a component of Pride marches around the world, including London's Pride parade in July.
Gay Boy Scout Outsted
Source: CNN: "American Morning"
This segment was excerpted from "American Morning," which features daily interviews with top newsmakers and celebrities.
Monday, June 16, 2003
 
Just weeks after breaking with the national Boy Scout organization and adopting a non-discrimination policy toward gays, Philadelphia's Boy Scout Council ousted a teen for declaring his homosexuality. Gregory Lattera plans to fight that decision. Lattera's attorney, Stacey Sobel, told CNN's Daryn Kagan, "Nothing has changed about Greg. He's just as good of a Scout and as a leader as he was before and he should be able to continue doing that."
U.S. couples cautioned not to wed in haste
By Ann Rostow, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Friday, June 13, 2003 / 04:31 PM
 
As the fourth day of legal same-sex marriage in Ontario dawned, federal officials had yet to determine exactly how the Canadian government will react to Tuesday's groundbreaking ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeals, which allowed gay and lesbian couples to marry at once. Meanwhile, in the United States, couples were cautioned that marriage is a legal act, not a political gesture.
 
Canadian Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, who was expected to present a formal response last Wednesday, said he will discuss the issue with his colleagues at a Cabinet retreat next week, the Associated Press reported. "I really want to take the time to talk with my colleagues," said the minister.
 
On Thursday, the House of Commons Justice Committee urged Prime Minister Jean Chretien to back same-sex marriage through a nonbinding resolution, according to the Associated Press. But the resolution passed by a one-vote 9-8 margin, reflecting a narrow divide on a contentious question.
 
Wednesday night, members of the governing centrist Liberal party emerged from a party caucus without agreement on whether to accept (and/or codify) same-sex marriages, or to fight the Ontario ruling at the Canadian Supreme Court. The presumptive next party leader, Paul Martin, has urged his colleagues to embrace the ruling and make it the law of the land.
 
In the United States, the four main GLBT legal rights groups issued a joint statement Friday. The community's lawyers -- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project -- spoke with one voice, urging caution for U.S. couples who are thinking of marrying in Canada.
 
Any couple may marry in Canada, regardless of residence or nationality. But divorce requires a one-year Canadian residency. Though American couples who marry in Canada may not be automatically granted all the rights and benefits of marriage in the United States at once, they are legally wed, the lawyers wrote. As such, the decision to marry is not a political gesture, but one that carries substantial and permanent legal obligations.
 
The lawyers also warned against entering a Canadian marriage in order to rush back to the United States to file a high-profile lawsuit seeking marriage recognition. "It's critical to remember that any legal case has profound implications beyond the individuals involved," wrote the group. "The wrong cases could set us back for years. We will be strongest if we work together." Any couple considering litigation is advised to call one of the four civil rights organizations, which have been fighting court battles for equal marriage rights over the last decade.
 
Rally for Gay Pride in San José
A PARADE OF ISSUES
CONCERNS ABOUT FAMILY, MARRIAGE RIGHTS DRAW HUNDREDS OF MARCHERS, SUPPORTERS
By Yomi S. Wronge
Source: Mercury News
Monday, June 9, 2003
 
In nearly two decades of marching in gay-pride parades to honor their gay son, the Hendersons of San Jose have seen themes go from the flamboyant to the health-conscious to the political, reflecting the issues facing the gay and lesbian community.
 
So it was no surprise Sunday when the couple looked around a parking lot in downtown San Jose to see folks ready to march down Market Street for causes ranging from gay marriage to adoption to kinder immigration laws for same-sex couples.
"The big issue today is marriage and family," said Mitzi Henderson, 70.
 
She and 72-year-old Tom Henderson, both wearing T-shirts from the Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG) organization, were joined by a few hundred adults and children at the Silicon Valley Gay Pride Parade.
 
The official theme was "The Power of Pride." Unofficially, it was a celebration of all types of family structures.
 
Jim Delahunt and Kate Sherwood, a married couple from Palo Alto, marched with Marriage Equality California, a non-partisan grass-roots group that strives to end marriage discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.
 
"I think society is moving very quickly toward recognizing marriage rights for same-sex partners," Delahunt said.
 
He pointed to Rich and Michael Butler of San Jose as an example of the legal obstacles some couples face by not having equal rights. The men have been together more than eight years and want to adopt a child, but are finding the system difficult to navigate for a gay couple.
 
"As a gay couple, we know you can never have too much family," Rich Butler, 31, said.
Walking side-by-side with them in the parade were Michael's parents, Mike and Bonnie Laster of Mountain View.
 
"We're here to support our sons," Mike Laster said. "We believe in marriage and feel it's a little sad that it's so difficult for them to have a child because they'd make wonderful parents."
 
Of course, no respectable gay-pride parade could go off without leather-wearing drag kings (women dressed as men) and flamboyant drag queens (men dressed as women). This year's event showcased Miss Transgender San Francisco, Rachel Hill of Gilroy.
"It's only been a year since I made the transition, so this is somewhat new for me," the 39-year-old Bank of America vice president said as she adjusted her bejeweled tiara and practiced her beauty queen wave. The transition she spoke of was the process of removing her male anatomy and adopting the female gender she identifies with.
 
Behind her, members of South Bay Queer & Asian, a support group, double-checked their traditional ethnic costumes and practiced dance steps. Robert Austria, 27, of Campbell, said they were there to have fun and hopefully recruit more members.
"We're very family-oriented," he said. "We do a lot of potlucks, camping, dinner parties."
 
When it was time, all of the various groups filed out of the parking lot and made their way down Market Street, where they were cheered on by a relatively sparse but exuberant crowd.
 
"You can blink and miss this parade, but it's really a lot of fun, and we like to come out and support it," said 36-year-old Sharon Branson of Santa Clara.
First gay wedding in Belgium
Fri Jun 6, 2:29 PM ET
 
BRUSSELS (AFP) - A Belgian lesbian couple tied the knot, becoming the first to take advantage of a new law allowing same-sex weddings, it was reported.
 
According to the Belga news agency Marion Huibrechts, 43, and Christel Verswyvelen, 37, exchanged vows at their local town hall in Kapellen, near Antwerp, six days after the law entered into force this month. They had lived together for 16 years.
 
The law, adopted by parliament in January, makes Belgium the second country in Europe to authorize gay marriages, after the Netherlands.
 
Gay couples will have mostly the same rights as heterosexual couples, apart from matters related to parentage and adoption: in a lesbian couple the biological mother is considered the child's lone parent, while gay couples cannot adopt a child.
Stars Shine on the 15th Lambda Literary Awards in Los Angeles
From: "The QBliss Newsroom"
Thu, 5 Jun 2003 13:08:34 -0700

English and Irish Authors Garner Fiction Prizes
 
Washington DC, June 3, 2003 -- The 15th Annual Lambda Literary Awards were presented May 29, 2003 at a gala ceremony in the Los Angeles Millennium Biltmore Hotel. Awards were presented in twenty categories.
 
Honors in Gay and Lesbian Fiction went to two historical novels, Irish author Jamie O'Neill's At Swim Two Boys and English author Sarah Waters' Fingersmith.
 
Perhaps the emotional high point of the evening, however, was when actress Judith Light presented the Bridge Builder Award to Betty DeGeneres, mother of actress Ellen DeGeneres, and to Judy Shepard, mother of the late Matthew Shepard.
 
More than 350 authors, booksellers, editors, publishers, readers and industry professionals gathered for the glittering event, produced by Los Angeles playwright and performer Michael Kearns. The awards were presented by a blue ribbon roster of California authors and public figures, including author Noel Alumit; author and Los Angeles Magazine art critic Bernard Cooper; Los Angeles Times film and music critic David Ehrenstein; mystery writer Katherine V. Forrest; poet Eloise Klein Healey; 23rd District California State Senator Sheila James Kuehl; best-selling poet Rod McKuen; performance artist Tim Miller; Skylight Books general manager Kerry Slattery; Advocate editor-in-chief Judy Wieder; and executive founder of the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute Phill Wilson.
 
In addition to the twenty juried categories, the Editor's Choice Award was presented to historian/activist John D'Emilio for The World Turned; and the Pioneer Award went to Barbara Grier, whose career has spanned almost the entire modern gay movement, from her work with the Daughters of Bilitis newsletter The Ladder, to the founding of Naiad Press, to her nurturing of Bella Books. Bella Books will continuing publishing many of the authors of Naiad Press as Naiad formally close its doors this summer.
 
"This year's awards showcased the full spectrum of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender publishing," said Lambda Book Report editor Jim Marks. Winners included independent GLBT presses such as Alyson and Cleis, university and mainstream presses, and other independent presses, large and small, such as Kensington Publishing. The Pilgrim Press and BOA Editions, Ltd. There was also one Canadian publisher, Arsenal Pulp Press, among the list of winning publishers.
 
Also presented at the dinner were awards from two other organizations promoting GLBT cultural literacy. The Monette/Horwitz Distinguished Achievement Awards for outstanding activism and research and scholarship to combat homophobia went to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in Washington, DC; and to scholars and teachers Jennifer DeVere Brody, Chicago, IL; Dwight A. McBride, Chicago, IL; Will Roscoe, San Francisco, CA; and James M. Saslow, New York, NY. The Monette/Horwitz award was endowed by the late Lammy winner Paul Monette, and named after himself and his partner, Roger Horwitz. Also presented during the ceremony was the Arch and Bruce Foundation Playwriting Award, a $1,000 grant to David Johnston of New York City for "Candy & Dorothy" and $500 to R.L. Nesvet of Bethesda, MD, for "The Shape Shifter."
The Lambda Literary Awards are chosen in a three part process. Publishers and other authorized representatives submit books for consideration in the fall. A panel of industry professionals selects five finalists in each category. Finally, panels of judges in each category select the winning title.

The 15th Annual Lambda Literary Awards were made possible through the generous sponsorship of:
  • American Airlines
  • The American Booksellers Association
  • Antioch University Los Angeles
  • The Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation
  • Attagirl Press
  • Bookazine
  • Consortium Book Sales and Distribution
  • Gay11.com
  • Genre Magazine
  • The Georgia Literary Association
  • The Haworth Press
  • Human Rights Campaign
  • Insightout Books
  • The Monette/Horwitz Trust
  • The Pilgrim Press
  • Random House
  • Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group
  • Spinsters Ink Books
  • TLA Video

About the Lambda Literary Foundation
The non-profit Lambda Literary Foundation is the only national organization dedicated to the recognition and promotion of gay and lesbian literature. The Foundation publishes the Lambda Book Report, a monthly GLBT book review and writers resource magazine, and The James White Review, a gay men1s literary quarterly. Additionally, it organizes the annual Lambda Literary Awards and an annual writers1 conference, the Lambda Literary Festival. The Lambda Literary Foundation is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Visit our Web site at www.lambdalit.org or call us at 202-682-0952.
15th Annual Lambda Literary Award Recipients
[The awards below are presented with the Category first, followed by the Book Title, Author, and Publisher]
Gay Men1s Fiction:
At Swim Two Boys
Jamie O1Neill
Scribner
Lesbian Fiction:
Fingersmith
Sarah Waters
Riverhead Books
Gay Men1s Poetry:
Hazmat
J.D. McClatchy
Alfred A. Knopf
Lesbian Poetry:
Mules of Love
Ellen Bass
BOA Editions, Ltd.
Gay Men's Mystery: The Snow Garden
Christopher Rice
Miramax Books
Lesbian Mystery (tie):
Immaculate Midnight
Ellen Hart
St. Martin1s Press
Good Bad Woman
Elizabeth Woodcraft
Kensington Publishing
Fiction Anthology:
Black Like Us
Devon Carbado, Dwight McBride and Don Weise, eds.
Cleis Press
Nonfiction Anthology:
The Man I Might Become
Bruce Shenitz, ed.
Marlowe & Company
Memoir/Autobiography:
Surviving Madness
Betty Berzon
University of Wisconsin Press
Biography:
Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam David Kaufman Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
Children's/Young Adult:
Letters in the Attic
Bonnie Shimko
Academy Chicago Press
Erotica:
Best Lesbian Erotica 2003
Tristan Taormino, ed.
Cleis Press
Humor:
Skipping Toward Gomorrah
Dan Savage
Dutton
Visual Arts/Photography:
A Hidden Love
Dominique Fernandez
Prestel
Romance:
The Winter of Our Discothèque
Andrew W.M. Beierle
Kensington Publishing
Science Fiction/Fantasy:
Queer Fear II
Michael Rowe, ed.
Arsenal Pulp Press
Religion/Spirituality:
Courage to Love
Geoffrey Duncan
The Pilgrim Press
LGBT Studies:
Sex-Crime Panic
Neil Miller
Alyson Publications
Transgender:
Dress Codes
Noelle Howey
Picador USA
LGBT Independent Press: Kings Crossing Publishing
Bridge Builder Awards:
Judy Shepard
The Matthew Shepard Foundation and
Betty DeGeneres
Love, Ellen, Quill; Just a Mom
Alyson Publications
Editor's Choice Award:
John D'Emilio
The World Turned
Duke University Press
Pioneer Award:
Barbara Grier
The Naiad Press
Psychiatric Association Debates Lifting Pedophilia Taboo
Source: CNSNEWS.com
By Lawrence Morahan (CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer)
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
 
In a step critics charge could result in decriminalizing sexual contact between adults and children, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently sponsored a symposium in which participants discussed the removal of pedophilia from an upcoming edition of the psychiatric manual of mental disorders.
 
Psychiatrists attending an annual APA convention May 19 in San Francisco proposed removing several long-recognized categories of mental illness - including pedophilia, exhibitionism, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism and sadomasochism - from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
 
Most of the mental illnesses being considered for removal are known as "paraphilias."
Psychiatrist Charles Moser of San Francisco's Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and co-author Peggy Kleinplatz of the University of Ottawa presented conferees with a paper entitled "DSM-IV-TR and the Paraphilias: An Argument for Removal."
 
People whose sexual interests are atypical, culturally forbidden or religiously proscribed should not necessarily be labeled mentally ill, they argued.
 
Different societies stigmatize different sexual behaviors, and since the existing research could not distinguish people with paraphilias from so-called "normophilics," there is no reason to diagnose paraphilics as either a distinct group or psychologically unhealthy, Moser and Kleinplatz stated.
 
Participants also debated gender-identity disorder, a condition in which a person feels discomfort with his or her biological sex. Homosexual activists have long argued that gender identity disorder should not be assumed to be abnormal.
 
"The situation of the paraphilias at present parallels that of homosexuality in the early 1970s. Without the support or political astuteness of those who fought for the removal of homosexuality, the paraphilias continue to be listed in the DSM," Moser and Kleinplatz wrote.
 
A. Dean Byrd, vice president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Utah, condemned the debate. Taking the paraphilias out of the DSM without research would have negative consequences, he said.
 
"What this does, in essence, is it has a chilling effect on research," Byrd said. "That is, once you declassify it, there's no reason to continue studying it. What we know is that the paraphilias really impair interpersonal sexual behavior...and to suggest that it could be 'normalized' simply takes away from the science, but more importantly, has a chilling effect on research."
 
"Normalizing" pedophilia would have enormous implications, especially since civil laws closely follow the scientific community on social-moral matters, said Linda Ames Nicolosi, NARTH publications director.
 
"If pedophilia is deemed normal by psychiatrists, then how can it remain illegal?" Nicolosi asked. "It will be a tough fight to prove in the courts that it should still be against the law."
 
In previous articles, psychiatrists have argued that there is little or no proof that sex with adults is necessarily harmful to minors. Indeed, they have argued that many sexually molested children later look back on their experience as positive, Nicolosi said.
 
"And other psychiatrists have written, again in scientific journals, that if children can be forced to go to church, why should 'consent' be the defining moral issue when it comes to sex?" she said.
 
But whether pedophilia should be judged "normal and healthy" is as much a moral question as a scientific one, according to Nicolosi.
 
"The courts are so afraid of 'legislating someone's privately held religious beliefs' that if pedophilia is normalized, we will be hard put to defend the retention of laws against child molestation," Nicolosi noted.
 
In a fact sheet on pedophilia, the APA calls the behavior "criminal and immoral."
"An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act that never can be considered normal or socially acceptable behavior," the APA said.
 
However, the APA failed to address whether it considers a person with a pedophile orientation to have a mental disorder.
 
"That is the question that is being actively debated at this time within the APA, and that is the question they have not answered when they respond that such relationships are 'immoral and illegal,'" Nicolosi said.
 
Dr. Darrel A. Regier, director of research for the APA, said there were "no plans and there is no process set up that would lead to the removal of the paraphilias from their consideration as legitimate mental disorders."
 
Some years ago, the APA considered the question of whether a person who had such attractions but did not act on them should still be labeled with a disorder.
"We clarified in the DSM-IV-TR...that if a person acted on those urges, we considered it a disorder," Regier said.
 
Dr. Robert Spitzer, author of a study on change of sexual orientation that he presented at the 2001 APA convention, took part in the symposium in San Francisco in May.
 
Spitzer said the debate on removing gender identity disorder from the DSM was generated by people in the homosexual activist community "who are troubled by gender identity disorder in particular."
 
Spitzer added: "I happen to think that's a big mistake."
 
What Spitzer considered the most outrageous proposal, to get rid of the paraphilias, "doesn't have the same support that the gender-identity rethinking does." And he said he considers it unlikely that changes would be made regarding the paraphilias.
 
"Getting rid of the paraphilias, which would mean getting rid of pedophilia, that would not happen in a million years. I think there might be some compromise about gender-identity disorder," he said.
 
Dr. Frederick Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, said people who are sexually attracted to children should learn not to feel ashamed of their condition.
 
"I have no problem accepting the fact that someone, through no fault of his own, is attracted to children. But certainly, such an individual has a responsibility...not to act on it," Berlin said.
 
"Many of these people need help in not acting on these very intense desires in the same way that a drug addict or alcoholic may need help. Again, we don't for the most part blame someone these days for their alcoholism; we don't see it simply as a moral weakness," he added.
 
"We do believe that these people have a disease or a disorder, but we also recognize that in having it that it impairs their function, that it causes them suffering that they need to turn for help," Berlin said.
Tobacco companies targeted gay market
By Christopher Lisotta, Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network
Monday 2 June, 2003 12:04
 
University of California at San Francisco researchers have published two papers that document the tobacco industry's attempts to target gay men to increase cigarette sales, and quell protest from gay political groups by giving money to Aids charities.
In the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health, UCSF School of Nursing research associate Elizabeth A. Smith wrote that the cigarette maker Philip Morris [now known as Altria] began advertising in the gay magazine Genre in the early 1990s in order to "own the market," but then immediately denied it was interested in gay male smokers after the mainstream media picked up on the move, arguing that Genre was not a gay magazine.
 
According to Smith, Philip Morris' ad firm suggested the company move into the gay market by buying advertising in gay publications for the relaunch of its Benson & Hedges brand. National advertising in the gay press was still rare at the time, and Genre's publishers notified the Wall Street Journal it had scored a big ad client. The ensuing media coverage took Philip Morris by surprise, and the company was quick to deny any interest in marketing to the gay community.
 
Ruth Malone, the senior author of Smith's paper, noted that the strategy is not new for tobacco companies, but the ensuing reaction was quite different.
 
"We've repeatedly seen that the industry is very good about identifying communities at the margins," Malone told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. Malone, who has also done studies on cigarette marketing to African Americans, noted that the industry rarely shied away from such criticism, saying they were playing an important part in the targeted community. Not so with gays.
 
"They said they didn't even know if such a market even exists," she added.
Smith's colleague, Naphtali Offen, wrote a related paper for the June issue of Tobacco Control, arguing that a 1990-1991 boycott of Philip Morris by gay political group ACT UP inadvertently served as the catalyst for the cigarette maker to buy its way into the gay community. ACT UP went after Philip Morris for its support of then-Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. Instead of fighting the boycott directly, Offen says the company began writing large checks to fund AIDS service organisations and charities, which led to a split within the gay activist communities, who debated whether receiving the money for much-needed services was the right thing to do. Within time, ACT UP backed off.
 
"The real story is Philip Morris took the situation and used it to their advantage," the openly gay Offen said to Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. "It was a back door into the gay community."
 
Malone, who also supervised Offen's paper, said even though the events discussed in the studies took place a decade ago, the connection to the gay community is still there.
 
"The issue is these kinds of behaviour are still going on," she noted. "Tobacco kills more [gay] people than Aids, gay bashing and all sorts of other things combined. You have to really consider the true costs."
Defining minority
Source: The Advocate
By Lisa Neff
June 10, 2003 issue

Controversy surrounds Salt Lake City's new minority affairs coordinator, Blythe Nobleman, who is not only white but also an out lesbian.
 
Hispanic activists and several religious leaders in Salt Lake City are more than a little upset about the mayor's choice for the city's new minority affairs coordinator. In mid April, Mayor Rocky Anderson appointed Blythe Nobleman, a 41-year-old white lesbian, to the position.
 
Latino leaders in Salt Lake City swiftly denounced the mayor for appointing an Anglo, while members of the Christian right lambasted him for appointing a lesbian. Others criticized the mayor for appointing an Anglo lesbian, suggesting that Anderson, a liberal Democrat, was simply trying to court the growing gay vote in his bid for reelection November 4.
 
Anderson has defended his appointment, and Nobleman, who left a teaching job at the University of Utah to assume the post, has defended Anderson.
 
Nobleman's job is twofold: to represent the mayor to minority groups and to help minority groups participate in civic life. The Advocate caught up with her on a Sunday afternoon less than three weeks into her new job.
 
Critics have said you came out for this position.
 
Certainly not. I came out when sperm met egg. When the mayor appointed me to this minority affairs position, it was a very courageous move on his part. It was a very bold way to openly acknowledge the GLBT community and the important role GLBT people play in our city. But I've been called derogatory names. I've been referred to as a "nonheterosexual," which seems entirely absurd. That's just silly.
 
There was the reference to "self-proclaimed lesbian" in The Salt Lake Tribune.
 
Yes, a "self-proclaimed lesbian." I don't even know what that means.
 
Did you anticipate the controversy?
 
I did, but not that it would continue this way.
 
Was your appointment election-year politicking?
 
No, that's totally untrue. At this point everything Mayor Anderson does is spun into election strategy. He already had the endorsement of Unity Utah [the state's GLBT political action committee] and the support of the GLBT community at large before he appointed me.
 
Does your appointment mean the mayor and the city government of Salt Lake City consider gay folks a minority?
 
Well, the mayor certainly does, and he wanted to provide greater representation for the GLBT community as a minority group.
 
What does that say about Salt Lake City, which, with its Mormon heritage, has a reputation as being quite conservative?
 
I think that courageous leaders like Mayor Rocky Anderson are taking the lead to dispel some of the negative myths about homosexuality. There's a big perception about Salt Lake City, and I'm here to tell you that it's changing, thanks to mavericks like Mayor Anderson.
 
Do you think a white lesbian can adequately represent racial or ethnic minorities in the city?
 
This shouldn't be a question of one minority community versus another competing for valuable resources. Mayor Anderson appointed me in a process of inclusion to focus on his "strength through diversity" initiative [a pro-minority employment policy]. I can empower other minorities here to voice their concerns and issues, to celebrate their cultures, to heighten the visible richness that minority communities contribute to the diverse populations.
 
How do you move forward?
 
I'm taking a very hands-on approach toward getting out in the community. I'm literally beating the streets and making contact with minority community activists and leaders so we can get to know each other face-to-face. I've tried to put my head down, stay focused on the work at hand. And, well, the more they criticize me and demean me, the more determined I am to work harder.
Study: Condoms Don't Increase Teen Sex
Source: Associated Press
By Laura Meckler
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
 
Teenagers at high schools where condoms were available were no more likely to have sex than other teens, a study says. The study published Wednesday backs earlier research on the programs developed in the 1990s to stem the spread of HIV and reduce teen pregnancy. It says that students in high schools with condom programs were more likely to use condoms, while students in other high schools were more likely to use other forms of birth control. Overall, there was no difference in pregnancy rates. The study could not determine if there was an increase in STDs.
 
Researchers at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services examined high schools in Massachusetts where the state Department of Education encouraged schools to develop condom programs. The study took a sample of all high schools, comparing students at nine schools that made condoms available with those at 50 schools that did not. They found 49 percent of students at non-condom schools reported having ever had sex, compared with 42 percent of those at schools with condoms available. "The concerns of the small minority of parents who oppose providing condoms or related instruction in schools were not substantiated," wrote lead author Susan M. Blake and her colleagues.
 
The Massachusetts study also found that:
  • Schools offering condoms were more likely to teach students how to use them properly.
  • Students at condom schools were more likely to have received information about HIV/AIDS.
  • Students at schools with condom programs were no more likely than others to say that condoms were easily available, even though they were more likely to use them.
The data came from the 1995 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The study, "Condom Availability Programs in Massachusetts High Schools: Relationship with Condom Use and Sexual Behavior," was published in the American Journal of Public Health (2003;93(6):955-962).
Gay Immigration Bill Gets Boost From Mexican Americans
Source: GayWork.com
Saturday, May 31, 2003
 
(Washington, D.C.) Legislation to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act by adding the term ermanent partner?has received a ringing endorsement from one of the country's largest Mexican-American political organizations. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund has announced its support for the Permanent Partners Immigration Act.
 
While close to 65% of all US immigration is family based, US citizens and permanent residents with same-sex partners cannot sponsor their foreign-born partner for immigration benefits no matter the length or level of commitment of the relationship.
First introduced in February of 2000, the bill, presented by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) garnered nearly 60 cosponsors in its first year, as well as the support of the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force (LGIRTF), the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the ACLU, and many other human rights groups. The PPIA currently has 105 cosponsors in the House of Representatives
"MALDEF has been a long-time supporter of civil rights for the gay and lesbian community. Our support of the Permanent Partners Immigration Act is just another example of our ongoing support in this area of civil rights," said Marisa Demeo, Regional Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
 
"There are Latino and non-Latino citizens and permanent residents, who happen to be gay or lesbian, who deserve to be treated the same under our immigration laws as Latino and non-Latino citizens and permanent residents who happen to be straight. Ultimately, this is simply a question of fairness that should be addressed in our immigration laws."
 
15 countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and South Africa currently recognize lesbian and gay relationships for immigration purposes.
'Gay Jesus' Claim Draws Fire
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com Pacific Rim Bureau Chief
Wednesday, May 29, 2003
 
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - A homosexual Australian theologian researching a new field of study dubbed "gay spirituality" has come to the conclusion that Jesus and some of his disciples were homosexuals.
 
Christians Thursday called the claim "preposterous" and "offensive," and suggested the researcher's own homosexual lifestyle affected his academic credibility.
Rollan McCleary on Thursday was awarded a Ph.D. for what the University of Queensland says is a "world first" thesis, after three years of research funded by Australian taxpayers.
 
The British-born Australian has a book coming out next month called Signs for a Messiah, which explores "the theological implications of the sexuality of Jesus."
McCleary also is an astrologer who has written about Pope John Paul II's horoscope -- and his research looks into matters such as the "star in the east" that drew the Magi or wise men to Jesus' birthplace in Bethlehem.
 
In a telephonic interview Thursday as he headed for his graduation ceremony, McCleary conceded that his views were controversial, but insisted they were accurate.
He uses Jesus' "astrological chart" -- the planet Uranus figures prominently, as in the case with many homosexuals, he says -- and argues that there are clues in the Bible to back up his views.
 
In the Gospel of John, the disciple John frequently refers to himself in the third person as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." McCleary thinks this is highly significant.
 
Asked whether he considered himself a Christian, McCleary replied: "I'm an Anglican, yes."
 
He strongly rejected the suggestion that his research might be biased because of his own homosexual lifestyle.
 
"You could see that either way. You could also say that heterosexual people have their eyes wide shut on the matter, that they don't want to see that Jesus would have been of gay disposition.
 
"You maybe have to be gay to read the signals and to see things and research things which other people wouldn't," he added.
 
A century ago, McCleary said, those with influence in Christianity were promoting a "muscular Christianity."
 
"They were even asking artists to portray a very rugged Jesus. They wanted almost a footballer [figure] to fit in with the American ideal of the times. So heterosexuals can also project their ideas onto Jesus quite as much as gay people."
He claimed his research and forthcoming book, being based on both astrology and theology, were "the nearest we can get ... to real objectivity on this."
 
'Abomination'
 
Christians opposed to the homosexual lifestyle generally base their stance on two Biblical passages.
 
In the Old Testament, God tells the people of Israel: "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22).
 
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul writes about "men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due" (Romans 1:27).
 
Asked about these texts, McCleary said references in the Scriptures to homosexuality were misunderstood or taken out of context.
 
"In those days they didn't have kind of concept of homosexuality as an identity such as we have it," he argued. "It has much more to do with other factors in society ... homosexuality was associated with idolatrous practices."
 
In the case of Paul's writings, he continued, "does everybody agree with St. Paul on slavery [or] on women wearing hats? There is such a thing as historical context."
Far from homosexuality being incompatible with Christianity, McCleary believes homosexuals have a particular inclination towards spirituality.
 
Homosexuals were historically used in priestly and shamanic roles, as "their nature brought them closer to divinity," he said.
 
Homosexuals were regarded by researchers as being "more inclined to ecstasy, they search for ecstatic experiences more, and religion has traditionally been one way of getting towards the ecstatic."
 
It wasn't by coincidence, he said, that in an age of declining church attendance, women and homosexuals "do tend to be there and to be supporting it."
 
McCleary rejected concerns about the fact he received 51,000 Australian dollars ($33,000) of public funding for his research.
 
"I gather some may feel resentful that such a -- to them -- way out subject was being funded, but nobody had done work on that subject. It's kind of a world first," he said.
 
"When I consider some of the astonishing doctorates some people do on the remotest subjects -- whereas I was dealing with a topical, relevant subject -- I really don't see how anybody could have objections [to the funding]."
 
Jesus' love for John
 
Jenny Stokes, research director for a Christian ethical action group in Australia called Saltshakers, said Thursday "the preposterous claim that Jesus was homosexual is offensive to all Christians."
 
She questioned the reliability of McCleary's academic research, saying it was "biased from the start since he openly acknowledges he is homosexual."
 
"It is one thing for homosexuals to do research into their own lifestyle," Stokes said. "However, it is a very different matter when universities - and taxpayers - are paying for research into such questionable and offensive topics. Research that is funded by taxpayers must not be based on personal bias."
 
Stokes also challenged McCleary's view on the disciple John.
 
In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, there are four words for love -- agape (spiritual, unconditional love), eros (erotic love), philia (love between friends) and storge (familial love.)
 
Stokes pointed out that all of the references to "the disciple whom Jesus loved" use the word "agape."
 
"The Bible maintains that the only approved sexual activity is within a marriage between a man and a woman and that homosexuality is wrong," she said.
 
"Trying to show that the Bible doesn't say that is distorting the clear meaning of Scripture. One has to ask if Mr. McCleary is investigating this topic to justify his own behavior."
 
Other academics have explored this controversial territory. Theology professor Theodore Jennings of the Chicago Theological Seminary has a new book out called "The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New Testament."
 
According to a review of the book on a seminary bookshop website, the author "argues that the Bible affirms and even celebrates homosexual relationships."
 
The Chicago Theological Seminary website says Jennings, a Methodist, "helped initiate the gay and lesbian studies program" at the seminary.
Texas governor signs defense of marriage act
Source: Advocate.com
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
 
Same-sex marriages cannot be recognized in Texas under legislation that Gov. Rick Perry signed Tuesday. With the new law, labeled the Defense of Marriage Act by its supporters, Texas will be prevented from legally recognizing same-sex unions that are formed in other states, including civil unions. Texas law already prohibits recognition of same-sex marriage. Perry signed the measure in a private meeting in his Capitol office with backers of the bill.
 
"Like the vast majority of Texans, I believe that marriage represents a sacred union between a man and a woman," Perry said in a prepared statement afterward. "With passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, Texas now joins more than 30 states in reinforcing that basic belief." The bill was authored by Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) and sponsored by Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa). The Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby of Texas fought against the law, saying it represents an agenda of intolerance and oppression.
Organizers reached out to women, minorities
Source: Long Beach Press-Telegram
604 Pine Avenue, Long Beach, CA, 90844-0001
(Fax: 562-499-1277 )
By Don Jergler, Staff writer
Sunday, May 19, 2003
 
LONG BEACH - People locked arms, police officers waved from their patrol cars and city workers walked hand-in-hand Sunday during the Gay Pride Parade, on the last day of what organizers called the largest Long Beach Lesbian & Gay Pride Festival.
The 20th annual two-day event drew an estimated 130,000-plus people to the parade and festival through the afternoon on Sunday, the last day of the event.
 
Lines of thousands waited into the evening for admission. The crowd at the event, the city's second-largest next to the Long Beach Grand Prix, easily topped last year's, which had an estimated attendance of 100,000, according to organizers.
 
"We blew it out," said Rodney Scott, one of the event organizers. "We're easily at 120,000 to 125,000."
 
He said the event grows each year, crediting the leap in turnout this year to an "aggressive marketing" campaign that targeted women and minorities.
 
"We increased visibility in the Latin community, we increased visibility in the African-American community and we increased visibility in the women's community," Scott said, adding, "This event is a reflection of our community."
 
According to organizers, all hotels in the Long Beach area were sold out.
 
Long Beach police reported more than 80,000 attendees at the festival alone, with no major incidents there or at the parade. "I've had no calls about any problems," said Sgt. Paul LeBaron, a police spokesman. "It was a really well-attended event. All the parking lots were totally full. Everything went really well.' The parade, along Ocean Boulevard from Temple Avenue to Alamitos Avenue, impressed some watchers because it had city agencies as participants.
 
Police Chief Anthony Batts rode in the parade, the first police chief to do so, and several from city departments marched. "I think it's good any time you have a public official showing support," said David Mardin, 25, who recently moved to Temecula from Nashville, Tenn., to be in "a more liberal atmosphere."
 
Also impressed by the solidarity shown by Long Beach agencies was Rob Bergstein, a 34-year-old West Hollywood resident who called attention to "the progress made between the law enforcement agencies.'
 
Margo Vines, 47, of Ontario, a regular attendee, said the parade and the festival was the biggest she's ever seen it.
 
"It's big. It's very positive,' Vines said. "Everyone's happy, they're behaved, they're celebrating life.'
 
Patrick Marks came from Seattle, bringing with him his friend, Pablo Rodriguez Jiminez, a 31-year-old Mexican national.
 
"I liked all the diversity," said Jiminez, who had never before attended a gay parade.
 
"I loved it," added Marks, 37.
 
Both men said they most enjoyed the West Hollywood Cheerleaders, a group of men in drag, who drew hearty laughs from paradegoers.
 
The festival was thick with crowds wrapping around booths and stages. Some walked linked arm-in-arm in human chains, three-, four-, five- and six-people wide.
On the main stage, Powder, an energetic "turbo pop" band featuring a 10-foot fly-like alien that sprays Silly String at audiences, gave the festival a raucous tone. Another stage echoed gospel music and another had karaoke to accompany padded sumo wrestlers.
 
"It's actually better this year," said Eric Dietrich, a 43-year-old Orange County resident, adding that the crowd was much larger than he's ever seen it.
For some, the event needed a little more spice.
 
"I'm a little disappointed," said Star Dell'Era, a 25-year-old Costa Mesa resident. She wanted to see more dance tents and more social interaction over booths and static displays.
 
She was at the festival with her friend, Mischa Schmeer, a 33-year-old Huntington Beach resident. Both women said the event could have used "a little more planning."
More than 225 vendor booths were set up at the event, which utilized 1,000 volunteers, according to organizers.
 
Booths varied from membership organizations, such as United Lesbians of African Heritage, to businesses, such as Liberty Financial's booth, which offered advice to people looking for home loans.
 
"I've had a lot more people than I even hoped for," said Kris Caulkins, a representative for the real estate planning firm. One of Caulkins' primary reasons for setting up the booth was to inform gay couples that domestic partners can obtain home loans. She said many people believe that same-sex couples cannot qualify because California law doesn't recognize domestic partnerships as marriages. But people are not required to be married to obtain a home loan, she added. "Just because they are the same sex should not be a problem,' she said.
 
Many said they were impressed by the positive atmosphere generated by the mix of people race, gender and sexual orientation at both the parade and festival.
"It was cool," said Jolie Gonzalez, a 19-year old Lakewood resident.
"You have gay people and you have straight people."
Church penalized for baptizing gay couple
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
By Mark Goebel
Tuesday, April 29, 2003 / 05:30 PM
 
A North Carolina church was expelled from a local Baptist association for baptizing two gay men.
 
Leaders of the Cabaruss (County) Baptist Association voted 250-11 on Monday night to sever ties with McGill Baptist of Concord, N.C.
 
The Rev. Steve Ayers, pastor of McGill Baptist, said he expected Monday's decision but was surprised by the overwhelming number that voted for expulsion. "It's a sad day in church life," Ayers said. "This is not about our Baptist heritage."
The association's missions director, Rev. Randy Wadford, read a statement after the vote in which he said the "homosexual lifestyle" is contrary to God's will and plan for mankind.
 
"No one in this building has a problem with homosexuals if they are willing to repent," he said. "The issue is lifestyle."
 
The reaction from Soulforce, an interfaith movement committed to ending spiritual violence against GLBT people, was swift and blunt.
 
"The expulsion of McGill Baptist is one more example of the Southern Baptist Convention misusing the religion," said Soulforce spokeswoman Laura Montgomery Rutt. "They may not be saying 'God hates fags,' but the effect is the same."
 
McGill Baptist was one of the founding members of the Cabaruss Baptist Association.
When the local Baptist association learned earlier this year about the baptism of the two gay men, the organization's leaders met with Ayers and asked him to withdraw the church from the association. He refused.
 
Ayers kept his congregation informed about the potential expulsion and its impact on the church. At the end of last Sunday's service, he told them that it would not cause the church to fall apart. "No matter what happens this week, we will meet on Sunday," he said.
 
According to Ayers the two men are upset about the furor their baptisms have caused. "But they prefer to stay out of the spotlight," said the pastor. "They are glad to have found a church home and attended services on Sunday."
Report: Hate-based incidents rose in 2002
From: QBliss E-Wires & Email Lists
Monday 28 April, 2003 10:01
An annual study released on Friday by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programnmes (NCAVP) reported that hate-motivated incidents against the GLBT community have increased across America, particularly those involving weapons or individuals who are 18 years old and under.
 
"This report illustrates that our communities continue to be under siege by those who would act out their hatred in violent and sometimes deadly ways," said Clarence Patton, NCAVP's acting executive director.
 
Overall, 2002 saw a 1% increase in reported incidents of anti-GLBT violence. There was also a 3% increase in the number of victims, but a 5% decrease in the number of offenders. Patton said this discrepancy shows a decrease in gang-type violence targeted at GLBT people.
 
One surprising statistic revealed a 164% increase of incidents reported from victims 18 and under. NCAVP stated, however, that the increase was caused by "better connections between young people and anti-violence programmes as well as the increased visibility and empowerment of young GLBT people, rather than an actual rise in attacks on young people."
 
Patton, who has worked on the report for more than six years, said overall he has noticed many positive trends, particularly in the annual homicide rate.
"About four years ago," he said, "there were 30 murders in about 10 or 11 cities; this year we had 12."
 
For 2002, however, the report noted a 1% increase in assaults and a 10% increase in assaults involving weapons. It also showed a rise of 3% of victims who sustained injuries, and a5% increase of victims who sustained serious injuries.
"In many places," Patton said, "the number of incidents was down but the number of violence was up - if something happened to you, you were more at risk of being harmed than in past years."
 
Twelve cities, including San Francisco, Houston, New York and Chicago, participated in gathering statistics for the report, which focuses on "violence against lesbians, gay men, transgender individuals and bisexual people."
 
To participate, cities must have an anti-violence organisation, which must collect data for at least three years. Milwaukee, Vermont, Philadelphia and Toronto plan to participate in future reports.
 
This is the seventh year the report has been produced.
 
According to NCAVP, the FBI produces its own annual hate-crimes report including anti-GLBT incidents, but it is far less comprehensive because "it relies on law enforcement reports of such crimes rather than victim service organisation data."
U.S. objected to U.N. resolution language
by Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Monday, April 28, 2003
 
The United States would not have supported a historic United Nations resolution endorsing gay human rights last week because it did not believe the U.N. session was the appropriate forum for the matter, Agence France-Presse reports.
 
The annual meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission ended on Friday after some Muslim nations tried to block a vote on the resolution, which was ultimately postponed until next year.
 
Sources close to the meeting indicated last week that the United States intended to abstain from the vote, and a U.S. State Department official confirmed the reports late last week.
 
"Given the multiple authorities addressing these issues and the wide variety of ways in which these issues arise, the United States was not prepared to endorse the language of this resolution," spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
 
Existing anti-discrimination legislation in U.S. states and cities "makes it difficult for the United States in meetings like this to commit itself to something that requires some sort of universal application throughout the system," he said.
The Human Rights Campaign, the biggest U.S. gay political organization, reacted with disappointment on Friday.
 
"We are troubled by reports that the U.S. would choose to abstain from voting on a resolution that would protect the civil and human rights of the world's gay community," said HRC director Elizabeth Birch. "We are eager to work with the State Department, allied groups and our supporters in Congress on this resolution when it next comes up for consideration."
Eric McCormack, Todd Haynes, Christina Agulera, The Hours, Six Feet Under, honored at 14th Annual Glaad Media Awards presented by Absolut Vodka in Los Angeles
[National] ArtsEnt
Contact:
LOS ANGELES
Kelly Striewski - BWR
(310) 550-7776 / kstriewski@bwr-la.com
SAN FRANCISCO:
Nick Adams - GLAAD
(323) 933-2240, ext. 343 / adams@glaad.org
Monday, April 28, 2003 - 05:34pm
[NOTE: Free-use print-quality photos from the 14th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles will be available to LGBT press after 8PM Pacific/11PM Eastern April 27 at http://www.glaad.org.]
 
LOS ANGELES, SUNDAY, APRIL 27, 2003 - The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) honored Eric McCormack, Todd Haynes, Christina Aguilera and the best in journalism, film, television and theater last night at the 14th Annual GLAAD Media Awards Presented by ABSOLUT VODKA in Los Angeles.
 
At the ceremonies held at the Kodak Theatre, Sean Hayes presented "Will & Grace" co-star Eric McCormack with GLAAD's Vanguard Award, honoring a member of the entertainment community who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
 
"It was GLAAD that during the shooting of the ['Will & Grace'] pilot sent a telegram saying, 'We're behind you all the way,'" McCormack said. "It was this atmosphere of support over skepticism, of enthusiasm over elitism, that not only encouraged me to do my best work as an actor but inspired me to give back to this community any way that I could."
 
Also at the ceremony, Dennis Haysbert ("Far From Heaven," "24") presented Todd Haynes ("Far From Heaven," "Velvet Goldmine," "Poison") with GLAAD's Stephen F. Kolzak Award, which honors an openly gay or lesbian member of the entertainment or media community for their outstanding contribution in combating homophobia.
 
"This is an amazing honor to me. I've always sort of considered myself someone working very much in the margins, very much outside of the mainstream, free to experiment with narrative, with depictions of homosexuality and struggle and a lot of other themes as well. Not always committed to positive representations necessarily, but trying to really get down deep into the things that unify all of us," Haynes said in accepting the award. "In honor of this award, in honor of GLAAD, I want to thank all of you. I feel very proud to be part of the representation of the gay struggle in film, and it'll be something I'll continue to do."
 
Following an a capella performance of her song "Beautiful," Christina Aguilera was honored with a Special Recognition award (presented by David LaChapelle) for including gay and transgender images in her music video for "Beautiful."
 
"It's so important that in my music I convey positive messages, and this song is definitely a universal message that everybody can relate to - anyone that's been discriminated against or unaccepted, unappreciated or disrespected just because of who you are," Aguilera said in her acceptance speech. "It was so important to me that I support the gay community in this sense. It's so sad that still in 2003 we even have to give awards like this. And that's why I'm here to show my love and support to all of you."
 
Other guests and presenters included:
 
Gloria Allred; Alan Ball; Jennifer Beals; Billy Bean; Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, Bill Brochtrup and Henry Simmons ("NYPD Blue"); Jacqueline Bisset; Jennifer Coolidge ("A Mighty Wind"); Kathy Griffin; Shawn Hatosy ("Borstal Boy," Showtime's upcoming "Soldier's Girl"); Mariel Hemingway; Jill Hennessey ("Crossing Jordan"); Heather Juergensen ("Kissing Jessica Stein"); Dave Kopay; Jane Leeves; Judith Light; Scott Lowell; Camryn Manheim; Constance Marie ("George Lopez"); Peter Paige; Doris Roberts; Judy Shepard; Hal Sparks; Mathew ST. Patrick; Jennifer Tilly, Esera Tuaolo and more.
"Tonight is about real people who do important things -- real people who have been touched by GLAAD and the media, and in return have touched all of us," said GLAAD Executive Director Joan M. Garry. "We're here to celebrate Eric, Todd, Christina and all tonight's nominees and winners -- to thank them for their responsibility, their commitment and their actions. Their work is making this world a better place for all of us."
 
GLAAD Media Awards were also handed out in seven of this year's 23 media categories (a complete list of last night's Media Awards recipients follows below). Additional awards were presented in New York on April 7. The remaining awards will be given out in San Francisco on May 31.
 
Following is a complete list of GLAAD Media Awards recipients announced Saturday in Los Angeles:
 
* Vanguard Award: Eric McCormack (presented by Sean Hayes) * Stephen F. Kolzak Award: Todd Haynes (presented by Dennis Haysbert) * Special Recognition: Christina Aguilera (presented by David LaChapelle)
* Outstanding Film - Wide Release: The Hours (Paramount Pictures) * Outstanding Comedy Series: Will & Grace (NBC) * Outstanding Drama Series: Six Feet Under (HBO) * Outstanding Individual Episode (in a series without a gay character): "Pararse" Resurrection Blvd. (Showtime) * Outstanding Television Movie: The Laramie Project (HBO) * Outstanding Newspaper Article: "Dos Madres para un Hogar (Two Mothers in One Household)" by Patricia A. González-Portillo, (La Opinión [Los Angeles]) * Outstanding Los Angeles Theater: Dementia (Latino Theater Company)
To purchase tickets for upcoming GLAAD Media Awards ceremonies, please contact Levy, Pazanti & Associates at (888) 655-6529 or (310) 201-5033. General event information and online ticketing can also be found online at www.glaad.org/mediaawards.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Some Predict Backlash for Gay Support
Source: AP
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
Friday, April 25, 2003
 
WASHINGTON - Supporters of Howard Dean's presidential campaign will be celebrating Saturday's third anniversary of his signing of the nation's only law giving gay partners the same legal rights as married couples. The loudest cheering, though, might come from Republicans.
 
Dean, a former Vermont governor, is touting his signing of the civil unions law. His campaign is helping organize more than 50 fund-raisers at the homes of supporters across the country Saturday to celebrate the anniversary, with Dean making conference calls to the guests.
 
Several of Dean's rivals for the Democratic nomination also are speaking out in support of increased rights and acceptance of gays. But many Republicans say strong support for gays will backfire in the general election and help President Bush (news - web sites) win more conservative and southern states.
 
Richard White, a Republican state senator from Mississippi, said any candidate talking about gay rights might as well not even visit his state.
"The people down here, they are not going to put up with that kind of stuff," White said. "We're not prepared for all that in Mississippi or anywhere else in the southern states."
 
The public has mixed feelings about homosexual acts, recent polls suggest. While a majority feels such acts should not be illegal, a majority does feel that such acts are immoral.
 
When Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery in an interview with The Associated Press this week, Bush remained silent while the Democratic presidential candidates roundly denounced his remarks.
 
Declaring support for gay rights draws applause from liberal audiences along the Democratic primary campaign trail. Sen. Joe Lieberman (news - web sites) of Connecticut, arguably the most moderate of the field, sought to appeal to members of the liberal Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (news - web sites) by playing up his support of a bill that would extend benefits to partners of gay federal employees.
 
Three other candidates ¡X Sen. John Kerry (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts, Rep. Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) of Missouri and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio ¡X were co-sponsors of the legislation last year.
But Dean has the strongest gay rights credentials thanks to signing the civil unions law.
 
"I feel like most people. If they know anything about him, that's what they know," said 26-year-old Josh Kruskol, who is having 30 to 50 friends over Saturday night for wine, dessert and a pitch to support the Dean campaign.
 
Dean said he opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that allows gays to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts. He said that if elected president, he would approach Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff about changing the policy.
 
He also said he would recognize civil unions at the federal level, extending rights to homosexual couples under tax law, immigration law and other federal policies.
"It seems to me the fair thing to do, and I think most Americans are fair-minded," Dean said. "So I can't wait to engage the Republicans on that issue."
 
The opposition research on Dean posted on the Republican National Committee (news - web sites)'s web site leads off by declaring that he is "ultraliberal on civil unions." And some Democrats say Dean will hurt himself in the South with his outspoken support for gay rights. Darryl Tattrie, chief financial officer of the Kentucky Democratic Party, said he personally supports civil unions, but he doesn't think it would be a winning issue in his state.
 
"I don't think voters in Kentucky would be for that," he said. "It's the way folks are raised."
 
Dean says he won't back down on the issue anywhere.
 
"It'll be harder in the South, but let's not forget that there are a lot of southern folks who are suffering in the Bush economy and who need better health care and better education for their kids, too," he said.
 
EDITOR'S NOTE ¡X Nedra Pickler covers presidential politics for The Associated Press.
Chafee Chides Santorum for Gay Remarks
Source: US Congress
Thursday, April 24, 2003
 
WASHINGTON - Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island became the second Republican senator to criticize fellow GOP Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record)'s remarks on homosexuality, but did not call on the Pennsylvanian to relinquish his No. 3 Senate GOP leadership post.
 
"I thought his choice of comparisons was unfortunate and the premise that the right of privacy does not exist ¡X just plain wrong," the moderate Chafee said in a written statement. "Senator Santorum's views are not held by this Republican and many others in our party."
 
In an interview with The Associated Press, Santorum compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. He also said the right to privacy does not exist in the Constitution.
 
Chafee's statement was made Wednesday, the same day fellow moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, said Santorum's comments "undermine Republican principles of inclusion and opportunity."
 
Some Democrats and gay-rights groups have said Santorum should step down from his leadership job. The White House has declined comment.
Opponents vocal against gay rights
Source: Charlotte Observer
By SHARIF DURHAMS, Raleigh Bureau
Thursday, April 24, 2003
 
RALEIGH -Some lawmakers got more feedback than they wanted Wednesday when they considered a ban on firing state employees because they are gay and lesbian.
 
One opponent at a public hearing said the proposal could serve as endorsement of bestiality, while another said gays and lesbians earn so much more than other workers that it's not possible they face discrimination.
 
A state worker said the head of his agency, N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverly Lake, would probably fire him once he found out the employee was gay.
 
One critic of the proposal was almost thrown out of the room.
Utah Sect Leader Criticizes Santorum
Source: US Congress
Thursday, April 24, 2003
 
SALT LAKE CITY - The leader of one of Utah's largest polygamist sects has objected to Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record)'s comment lumping plural marriage with other practices the Pennsylvania Republican considers to be antifamily.
 
Santorum has been under fire for comparing homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.
 
Owen Allred, 89, head of the United Apostolic Brethen, based in the Salt Lake City suburb of Bluffdale, agreed with Santorum in part.
 
"He is absolutely right. The people of the United States are doing whatever they can to do away with the sacred rights of marriage," Allred told The Salt Lake Tribune.
But Allred said Santorum's inclusion of polygamy in his list tarnishes a religious tradition whose roots are traced to biblical figures such as Abraham, Jacob and Moses ¡X defiling them as "immoral and dirty."
 
In an interview with The Associated Press published over the weekend, Santorum criticized homosexuality while discussing a pending Supreme Court case over a Texas sodomy law.
 
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," Santorum said.
 
"Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family," he said.
Polygamy was abandoned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more than a century ago and it excommunicates members who advocate it, but it is estimated that tens of thousands in Utah continue the practice. Membership estimates for Allred's church range from 4,000 to 6,000, and there also are a number of independent polygamists loosely affiliated with Allred's group.
 
Santorum is chairman of the GOP conference in the Senate, third in his party's leadership, behind Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Gay rights groups and some Democrats have suggested he be removed from the conference post.
 
Speaking at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Santorum defended his comments and said they were similar to what Justice Byron White wrote in the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that consenting adults have no constitutional right to private homosexual sex.
 
"To suggest that my comments, which are the law of the land and were the reason the Supreme Court decided the case in 1986, are somehow intolerant, I would just argue that it is not," Santorum said.
U.S. may abstain from historic U.N. vote
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
By Ahmar Mustikhan
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The United States is set to abstain from a historic U.N. vote condemning discrimination based on sexual orientation, two human rights groups said.
 
The United States is set to abstain from a historic vote at the United Nations (news - web sites) condemning discrimination based on sexual orientation, two human rights groups said on Wednesday.
 
The draft resolution, introduced by Brazil, expresses "deep concern at the occurrence of violations of human rights all over the world against persons on grounds of their sexual orientation" and calls on relevant U.N. human rights bodies to "give due attention" to these violations.
 
The resolution is being offered at the 59th session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, underway in Geneva.
 
Amnesty International said the U.S. government was leaning toward abstaining. "Our representative in Washington, D.C., attended a State Department briefing Tuesday where we learned about the decision," Michael Hefling, director of the group's OUTfront program on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights, told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com on Wednesday.
 
The briefing said the United States would vote against an Egyptian resolution of "no action" on the Brazil resolution, "but would abstain from the Brazil resolution itself," Hefling noted.
 
The resolution is to be put for vote before the commission either Thursday or Friday. The voting was originally set for Wednesday.
 
Queries to the State Department went unanswered before press time.
 
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (news - web sites) (NGLTF) confirmed on Wednesday that officials in the International Lesbian and Gay Association in Europe had relayed to them the U.S. decision to abstain from the groundbreaking resolution.
"The word is the U.S. is abstaining," Sean Cahill, director of the NGLTF Policy Institute said from New York. "It's a no-brainer, simple resolution, and we urge the State Department to instruct the United States to vote on it."
 
Cahill said the U.S. government claims that its foreign policy was driven by concern for human rights and the resolution simply states discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong.
 
"We hope the U.S. government reconsiders its position," Cahill said. "If we fail to support the resolution, once again the U.S. would be failing to show leadership on LGBT issues. Neutrality on it means supporting the axis of homophobia."
 
Amnesty's Hefling said, "We are disappointed the U.S. is going to abstain. We believe the U.S. government is undermining the principle of universality of human rights."
The resolution, co-sponsored by at least 20 countries, calls on states to promote and defend the human rights of all people, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
 
A dozen Muslim countries and some African nations are opposed to the resolution, while Cuba had earlier said it would back it but now seems to have second thoughts. This was true for some other Latin American nations as well, informed sources in Europe said.
Los Angeles approves AIDS memorial
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
By Christopher Lisotta
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved the creation of an AIDS (news - web sites) victims memorial in a park, despite neighborhood opposition.
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved the creation of an AIDS victims memorial in a park, despite neighborhood opposition.
 
In a 10-0 vote, the council approved on Tuesday the $505,000 memorial, which will be funded by state, city and private donations, for the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Lincoln Heights. The 9,000-square-foot memorial, named "The Wall -- Las Memorias," will be shaped in the likeness of the Aztec god of hope, Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent, and consist of eight panels.
 
Two panels will bear the names of 2,000 people who have died from complications of AIDS, while the other six panels will bear murals depicting life with AIDS, designed by local Los Angeles artists. Memorial designers hope it will serve as an educational tool to spur discussion in the Latino community about HIV (news - web sites) and AIDS. An open-air amphitheater will be located near the end of the memorial to host community discussions and educational seminars. The plan also calls for sculpture, benches, a walking path and a rose garden.
 
The City Council vote marked the end of a sometimes acrimonious debate between memorial supporters and neighborhood residents, who argued they were not consulted enough about the design and even the location of the memorial. Critics said in a series of community meetings the area is so short on public space it has no room for any kind of monuments, while others countered that diseases like diabetes would be a better choice for a memorial than AIDS.
 
Supporters countered that the real reasons some people were wary of the memorial were homophobia and fear over discussing a subject like AIDS so publicly within the Latino community, and broadcasting to the public at large that AIDS is a problem.
 
Earlier this month Richard Zaldivar, who first envisioned the memorial 10 years ago, asked the city's Human Relations Commission to mediate the dispute.
 
Zaldivar asked for the commission to intercede after a private group of residents began handing out fliers in front of a nearby Catholic Church that said, "Latino gay men have been covertly trying to make a monument to themselves."
 
With a big turnout from both sides of the issue at the council meeting, the final vote got emotional as well. The Los Angeles Times reported that immediately after the vote Councilman Nate Holden told opponents, "(AIDS) won't go away. It is what it is."
Construction is expected to begin in May and be completed by June.
Colo. City Withdraws Partners' Benefits
Source: AP
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The City Council has voted to withdraw health benefits for same-sex partners of city employees, fulfilling promises some council members made during this month's election campaign.
 
Tuesday's 8-1 vote came despite protests from dozens of residents.
 
The benefits, approved in December on a 5-4 vote, are currently provided to six people, costing the city about $6,000 this year.
 
Campaigning before the April 1 election, Mayor Lionel Rivera promised to discontinue the benefits, as did six of the seven council members who won office. They joined two holdovers who had opposed the measure earlier.
 
Rivera dismissed arguments Colorado Springs should fall in line with an increasing number of private companies that offer benefits to same-sex couples.
 
"Those are corporate dollars ¡X they certainly aren't taxpayer dollars," he said.
 
Across the country, more than 100 local governments offer health benefits to same-sex couples, according to Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization in Washington.
New Data Shows Smoking Rates Above State Average Among California's Ethnic and Gay and Lesbian Communities
Source: US Newswire
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
To: State Desk
Contact: Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati of the Tobacco Education Network, 310-528-8935 (cell); 626-457-6608 (office)
 
SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 23 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Despite significant decreases in smoking among Californians overall, leaders representing the state's diverse populations voiced despair and anger today over new data which shows smoking prevalence remains high among California's ethnic and gay and lesbian communities.
 
According to the 2001 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), conducted by the Center for Health Policy Research at the University of California, Los Angeles, gays and lesbians had a combined smoking prevalence of 30.8 percent, followed by American Indians (30.3 percent), African Americans (20.6 percent) and non-Hispanic whites (18.1 percent). Smoking prevalence was 21.4 percent among Asian males, and 19.5 percent among Hispanic/Latino males.
 
"Even though California has some of the most progressive tobacco control policies and the second lowest smoking rate in the nation, smoking disparities still exist in California's low-income, ethnic and gay and lesbian communities," said Dr. Lourdes B ezconde-Garbanti, Director of the Hispanic/Latino Tobacco Education Network at the University of Southern California. All of California's diverse communities should be able to benefit from the progress that has been made in tobacco control. By allocating as little as 20 cents of any tobacco tax increase, our leaders can ensure that vital tobacco education programs are supported and maintained."
 
The CHIS survey provides, for the first time, prevalence numbers specific to California's American Indian and gay and lesbian communities. Among gay men age 18 to 65 years old smoking prevalence was 33.2 percent, which is 54.4 percent more than all California men in the same age group. Among lesbians 18 to 65 years old, 25.3 percent smoked, which is 66.4 percent more than all California women in the same age group. American Indian women, at 31.5 percent, had the highest smoking rates among females.
"California's leaders need to look at the facts. The gay and lesbian community and the American Indian community both have prevalence rates nearly double that of the general population," said Bob Gordon of the San Francisco Tobacco-Free Project. The CHIS data also highlights the discouragingly high rates among men in the Hispanic/Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and African American communities. Korean men, at 35 percent, have the highest smoking prevalence among males.
 
"Spending $3.2 million a day in California alone, the tobacco industry is aggressively targeting our communities in their relentless pursuit to attract new smokers. In the Hispanic community, for example, one tobacco company is spending more than $64 million on advertising. Brands like Kool, Natural American Spirit, and Rio and special marketing promotions are all designed to attract and capitalize on smokers from our communities," said Beverly Jones-Wright, African American Tobacco Education Network member.
 
"Our diverse communities represent more than 52 percent of California's residents. The tobacco industry is targeting our men and women. Our leaders have a moral obligation to our children and our people to use tobacco tax funds to provide targeted tobacco use prevention and cessation programs. This is crucial to ensure that tobacco abuse is reduced. A 'one-size-fits' all approach will not work," stated Radley Davis, Inter-Tribal Council/Life Center Councilor and Chair of the American Indian Tobacco Education Network.
 
Every dollar invested in the California Tobacco Control Program saves the state at least $3 in direct health care costs and another $5 by reducing lost productivity. According to a report by the Institute for Health & Aging at the University of California, San Francisco, the cost of smoking in California is nearly $16 billion annually or $3,331 per smoker every year.
 
"Decreasing illness and death from tobacco-related diseases will significantly lower the emotional toll of tobacco abuse in our communities and the economic costs to our state. Our communities and our families deserve equal access and equal opportunity to tobacco use prevention and cessation," said Benjamin Nate, member of the Asian & Pacific Islander Tobacco Education Network. "We ask California leaders to have the political will to support and fund vital tobacco control programs."
 
The United Communities Against Tobacco Abuse represents California's diverse communities, including African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people. The group united at the capitol today to educate leaders on the tobacco-related disparities faced by their communities.
Santorum Seeks to Clarify Remarks on Gays
Source: AP
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
 
WASHINGTON - Rick Santorum, the Senate's third-ranked Republican who is under fire from gay-rights groups and Democrats, says he has "no problem with homosexuality ¡X I have a problem with homosexual acts."
 
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press two weeks ago, Santorum, R-Pa., said he believes homosexual acts are a threat to the American family. He drew criticism from gays and Democrats after parts of the interview ¡X during which he compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery ¡X were published Monday.
 
"I have no problem with homosexuality ¡X I have a problem with homosexual acts, as I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships," Santorum said during an interview taped April 7 in his Senate office.
 
"And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual," he said. "I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions. And you have to separate the person from their actions."
 
Given a chance to clarify his comments before the story was published, Santorum said: "I can't deny that I said it, and I can't deny that's how I feel."
The interview lasted more than an hour and covered a range of topics.
 
Democrats and gay-rights groups, in Washington and Pennsylvania, called on GOP leaders to remove Santorum from the Senate leadership after the interview was published.
 
But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said, "Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to suggest otherwise is just politics."
 
Conservative Republicans, including former presidential candidate Gary Bauer (news - web sites), rallied to Santorum's defense.
 
"I think that while some elites may be upset by those comments, they're pretty much in the mainstream of where most of the country is," Bauer said.
 
During Santorum's interview with the AP, he brought up a pending Supreme Court case over a Texas sodomy law within the context of his discussion on homosexual acts.
 
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."
 
On Tuesday, Santorum's office released a statement to underscore that those comments were made in the context of the court case.
 
"My discussion with The Associated Press was about the Supreme Court privacy case, the constitutional right to privacy in general, and in context of the impact on the family," Santorum said in the statement. "I am a firm believer that all are equal under the Constitution. My comments should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles."
 
Santorum also criticized, during the April 7 interview, what he called "a whole feminist movement that's built around the fact that fathers are unnecessary." He answered "absolutely" when asked if liberalism takes power away from the family.
 
"The basic liberal philosophy is materialistic, is relativistic, to the point of, you've got candidates for president saying we should condone different types of marriage," Santorum said. "That is, to me, the death knell of the American family."
PFAW: Santorum's Anti-Gay Remarks Fit Pattern of Discrimination; PFAW Calls on President, GOP to Repudiate Santorum's Remarks
Source: US Newswire
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
To: National Desk
Contact: Tracy Duckett or Nathan Richter, 202-467-4999, both of People for the American Way
 
WASHINGTON, April 23 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Referring to the pending Supreme Court case on Texas' so-called "Homosexual Conduct" law, Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum said in an Associated Press interview, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." Later in the interview, Santorum said, "It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution...Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."
 
Following is a statement from People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas.
"Senator Rick Santorum's remarks comparing the protection of Americans' privacy in their own homes to protecting bigamy and incest came as a disappointment, but, sadly, not as a surprise. Santorum's record demonstrates a history of hostility toward equal rights for all Americans, and that hostility is reflected in the attitudes of the Republican Party leaders and the many of the judicial nominees of President Bush (news - web sites)."
 
"Santorum missed an opportunity to apologize for these insensitive comments. Instead, he claimed that his comments were in keeping with his belief that everyone is 'equal under the Constitution.' It is evident from his record that this is not the case. The White House and Santorum's colleagues in the GOP leadership also chose to maintain their silence on Santorum's attack on equal rights. They should repudiate his comments, and affirm an inclusive vision of America where privacy and equal rights are guaranteed for all.
 
"Since 2001, Santorum, with the president's blessing, has worked to include language specifically authorizing discrimination into a piece of so-called 'faith-based' legislation. Santorum previously admitted that he wanted to allow religious organizations to be able to take public funds but still discriminate against gay people. Fortunately, despite Santorum's position as third-highest ranking Republican in the Senate Leadership, he was forced to remove his divisive provisions from the final version passed in the Senate.
 
"Santorum's record closely matches that of other far right ideologues. Alabama Attorney General William Pryor -- who is one of President Bush's troubling federal appeals court nominees -- in his state's amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in the Texas case equated the right of gay Americans to engage in consensual sex within their own homes to 'activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia...'
 
"The comments of Santorum's spokesperson that he 'has no problem with gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender individuals' rings hollow. Santorum describes gay people as a threat to healthy families. His record supporting discrimination through charitable choice legislation, and his opposition to hate crimes legislation demonstrate instead that Santorum believes gay Americans don't deserve full equality with other Americans.
 
"The silence from the White House and Republican party leaders about Senator Santorum's comments, combined with Bush's troubling judicial nominees and his executive orders supporting discriminatory hiring in religious institutions, all point to the high stakes in this summer's likely battle for the future of the Supreme Court. Will the next justice support privacy and equal rights for all, or will these and other freedoms be restricted for generations to come?
Dean Calls for Santorum to Resign Post
Source: US Congress
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
 
WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean on Wednesday called for Republican Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record) to resign his leadership post after the lawmaker compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.
 
"Gay-bashing is not a legitimate public policy discussion; it is immoral. Rick Santorum's failure to recognize that attacking people because of who they are is morally wrong makes him unfit for a leadership position in the United States Senate," Dean said in a statement.
 
Santorum, Pennsylvania's junior senator, is No. 3 in the GOP leadership, serving as the Republican Party's conference chairman. On Tuesday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also called for Santorum to step down as conference chairman; gay-rights groups and several Democrats have criticized the lawmaker for his comments.
 
As governor of Vermont, Dean signed legislation that allowed gay couples to enter into civil unions.
 
Speaking at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania Wednesday, Santorum defended his comments and said they were similar to what Justice Byron White wrote in the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that consenting adults have no constitutional right to private homosexual sex.
 
"To suggest that my comments, which are the law of the land and were the reason the Supreme Court decided the case in 1986, are somehow intolerant, I would just argue that it is not," Santorum said.
Sen. Santorum Defends Remarks in Gay Court Case
Source: Reuters
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania on Tuesday ignored calls that he apologize and resign from his Senate leadership post as he defended comments he made comparing homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.
 
"My comments should not be misconstrued in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles," Santorum said in a brief news release issued by his office.
In an interview with the Associated Press published on Monday, Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, discussed a Texas sodomy law now being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites).
 
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery," Santorum was quoted as saying. "You have the right to anything."
 
The court is considering if the Texas law violates privacy rights and unfairly targets same-sex couples or if the state has a legitimate interest in setting moral standards (news - web sites).
 
In his statement on Tuesday, Santorum said: "When discussing the pending Supreme Court Case Lawrence v. Texas, my comments were specific to the right to privacy and the broader implications of a ruling on other state privacy laws."
 
"In the interview, I expressed the same concern as many constitutional scholars, and discussed arguments put forward by the State of Texas, as well as Supreme Court justices. If such a law restricting personal conduct is held unconstitutional, so could other existing state laws," Santorum said.
 
"My discussion ... was about the Supreme Court privacy case, the constitutional right to privacy in general, and in context of the impact on the family. I am a firm believer that all are equal under the Constitution," Santorum said.
 
His comments on Monday ignited a firestorm of criticism from some Democrats as well as gay rights groups, a number of whom demanded an apology.
 
In addition, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee called on Santorum on Tuesday to step down as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the No. 3 job in the party's leadership. A spokesman for the committee called his comments "divisive, hurtful and reckless."
 
In an interview with the Fox news channel, Santorum said he would not step down.
"I didn't say anything that needs to be apologized for," Santorum said. "I talk a lot about this issue of activism in the courts. I talk about the issue of privacy and the extension of the right of privacy to a variety of different areas that I think would be injurious to our country."
 
The flap comes four months after Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) of Mississippi was forced to step down as Senate Republican leader for racially charged remarks.
 
At the White House, press secretary Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) had no comment on the matter.
 
Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), a fellow Pennsylvania Republican, said he accepted Santorum's statement that his comment should not be misconstrued as a statement on individual lifestyles.
 
"I have known Rick Santorum for the better part of two decades and I can say with certainty he is not a bigot," Specter said in a statement.
 
Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee also issued a statement supporting Santorum.
 
"Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to suggest otherwise is just politics," Frist said.
Man gets house arrest for anti-gay attack
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
By Mark Goebel
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
 
SUMMARY: Faced with a possible 30 years in prison, a man who attacked three others after a Pride event in Florida received a sentence devoid of jail time.
 
A Hillsborough County judge sentenced a 21-year-old Clearwater, Fla., man to two years of house arrest followed by four years' probation and 500 hours of community service for attacking three men after a Pride event last July.
 
Devin Scott Angus had faced up to 30 years in prison. Earlier this month he pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated battery and a hate crime, the Associated Press reported.
 
"I hope this judge isn't involved in any other discrimination cases, because he evidently doesn't know how to handle them," said Steven Hair. The 26-year-old has been to the dentist 20 times to repair teeth knocked out by the beating he took from Angus.
 
Prosecutor John Terry asked the judge, Chet Tharpe, to give the accused four years in prison, and Angus' attorney asked for two.
 
The victims were leaving a party at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa when Angus confronted them in a parking lot.
 
Before attacking the men, Angus taunted them by dropping his pants and screaming obscenities.
 
Hair's partner Sonny Gonzales, 35, received a head laceration, and their friend, Scott Boswell, 25, got a split lip.
 
At the sentencing hearing on Monday, Angus tearfully apologized to the victims. "I don't know why I did it," he said. "I don't hate homosexuals. I didn't hate you that night."
 
The victims wanted Angus to serve prison time. In court, Gonzales showed the scar on his head from the attack and described the lingering emotional trauma. "I don't know if I'll ever go to another Gay Pride event again," he said.
 
In explaining the lenient sentence, Judge Tharpe said that he worried sending the young man to prison would make him worse. The judge also gave Angus a six-year suspended sentence. "If Angus gets into trouble the next six years, he'll go to prison," he said.
California lawmakers ban sex stereotyping
Source: 365Gay.com
By Mark Worrall
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The California State Assembly on Monday passed legislation to prohibit discrimination based on gender stereotyping in housing and employment.
 
The California State Assembly on Monday passed legislation to prohibit discrimination based on gender stereotyping in housing and employment.
 
The bill, by Assemblymember Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, now heads to the state Senate for committee hearings and a vote by the full chamber.
 
Leno made national headlines last month by introducing Teresa Sparks, former human rights commissioner of San Francisco, as his pick for "Woman of the Year," the first transgender woman ever to receive that honor from the state Assembly.
 
The bill is estimated to have no fiscal impact on the state's budget, because the state's Department of Fair Employment and Housing already investigates cases of gender-based discrimination under existing sex discrimination laws.
 
The legislation is supported by a broad coalition of organizations, including the California Labor Federation, AFSCME, SEIU, the NAACP, the National Association of Social Workers, the California Commission on the Status of Women, and California Church IMPACT, as well as a number of businesses and business organizations.
 
The National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Transgender Law Center were among the organizations that assisted with drafting the bill and testifying at committee hearings.
 
"No one should have to face discrimination or harassment because of gender-related characteristics that have nothing to do with their qualifications as a tenant or employee," said California Alliance for Pride and Equality Executive Director Geoffrey Kors.
 
"This bill simply codifies the already-established fact that every Californian has the basic right to a job and housing regardless of gender identity or expression," said Kors.
Rare Presbyterian trial ends with rebuke
Source: Gay.com / Planetout Network
By Ahmar Mustikhan
Monday, April 21, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The Presbyterian court in Cincinnati found a gay-friendly minister guilty of violating its constitution and condemned his act of marrying same-sex couples.
 
On Monday the Presbyterian court in Cincinnati found a gay-friendly minister guilty of violating its constitution and condemned his act of marrying same-sex couples. It absolved him of ordaining unrepentant homosexuals as deacons and clergy, however.
 
In the first trial of its kind, Rev. Stephen Van Kuiken, pastor of Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, could have been removed or suspended from the ministry but was only rebuked. At least one member of the seven-member court dissented on both counts, apparently wanting a stiffer sentence.
 
On technical grounds, the court acquitted Van Kuiken on another charge of ordaining unrepentant gays as deacons and elders. It ruled the governing body of the local church, not the pastor, should be held accountable for any such breach.
 
A defiant Pastor Van Kuiken said he would appeal the decision. The pastor felt he and others have been left in a state of limbo, as the door for a harsher sentence in the future has been kept wide open.
 
In a communication sent to the Gay.com/PlanetOut Network, Van Kuiken said since the decision is "contrary to the Scriptures, it is also unconstitutional."
 
Making it clear he would continue ordaining gays and marrying same-sex couples, Van Kuiken explained, "These laws still exist as a rationale for continued bigotry, discrimination and abuse of gay and lesbian persons in our society, because they state that their sexual orientation is sinful and wrong."
 
A complaint was filed against Van Kuiken last year after he made his views on the two issues public.
 
"Rev. Van Kuiken is carrying on the work of people like Martin Luther King, who stated that one who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty," said Rev. Mel White, director and founder of Soulforce, an interfaith organization devoted to ending discrimination in places of worship.
 
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has said a theological task force was studying the fidelity/chastity ordination standard and is to report its findings and recommendations to the church's General Assembly in 2006. More than a dozen churches, including the Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, have publicly defied the law.
Gay Groups Urge GOP to Remove Santorum
Source: Associated Press
By By LARA JAKES JORDAN (Associated Press Writer)
Monday, April 21, 2003
 
WASHINGTON - Gay-rights groups, fuming over Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record)'s comparison of homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery, urged Republican leaders Monday to consider removing the Pennsylvania lawmaker from the GOP Senate leadership.
 
A coalition of groups in Washington and Pennsylvania compared Santorum's remarks to those by those last December by former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott about Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist campaign for the presidency. Shortly afterward, Lott was forced to resign as Republican Senate leader. ,dd> Santorum is chairman of the GOP conference in the Senate, third in his party's leadership, behind Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
 
"We're urging the Republican leadership to condemn the remarks. They were stunning in their sensitivity, and they're the same types of remarks that sparked outrage toward Sen. Lott," said David Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy organization. "We would ask that the leadership reconsider his standing within the conference leadership."
 
In an interview with The Associated Press, Santorum criticized homosexuality while discussing a pending Supreme Court case over a Texas sodomy law.
 
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything," Santorum, R-Pa., said in the interview, published Monday.
 
Santorum's spokeswoman did not have an immediate comment to the criticism from the gay rights groups. The White House did not immediately return a call seeking comment, and a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Frist declined comment.
 
Lott resigned his post in December after making remarks at a 100th birthday celebration for Thurmond that were widely considered racially insensitive and condemned by the White House. Lott later apologized.
 
Among the groups condemning Santorum's remarks were the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, the Pennsylvania Log Cabin Republicans (news - web sites), OutFront, and the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition.
 
On the Net:
Sen. Rick Santorum: santorum.senate.gov
Human Rights Campaign: www.hrc.org
Court: Domestic abuse law not for gays
Source: 365Gay.com
Monday, April 21, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The Puerto Rico Supreme Court has overturned gay and lesbian provisions in domestic violence laws.
 
The Puerto Rico Supreme Court has overturned gay and lesbian provisions in domestic violence laws.
 
In a 4-3 decision, the court set aside criminal charges against Leandro Ruiz Martinez for beating his domestic partner, Juan J. del Valle, two years ago. It was the first domestic-violence case the government prosecuted since it decided to apply the law to same-sex couples.
 
The judges in the majority said the legislative intent was to "strengthen the institution of the family," defined as a "sentimental and legal union between a man and a woman."
 
The ruling comes as the Legislature is revising the island's penal code for the first time in 30 years, including Puerto Rico's sodomy law.
 
Although the law has never been applied in Puerto Rico, activists say the threat is there. One lawmaker so much as voiced that threat during hearings on the new code.
 
Lesbian activist Margarita Sanchez took the threat to the commonwealth's Supreme Court. The judges threw out the case, ruling a potential threat was not enough to prove a violation of the right to privacy guaranteed in the island's Constitution or unequal protection under the law.
 
The Ruiz domestic violence case, Sanchez says, shows the danger of the sodomy law. In order to pursue the case against his former partner, del Valle had to get immunity from prosecution under the sodomy law, which criminalizes any sexual contact not traditionally used for procreation.
 
"Here we see a clear example of the type of damage this can cause," said Janice Gutierrez, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Puerto Rico office.
"The decision by the court reflects that wish for the (gay) community to continue to be nonexistent, for the closet to keep growing," said Ricardo Ramirez Lugo of the Legal Assistance Clinic at the University of Puerto Rico's Law School.
 
The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a Texas case in which two men caught having sex in a bedroom claim the sodomy law is unconstitutional. If the court rules the law unconstitutional, it would void the law in Puerto Rico and other states and territories which still ban sodomy.
Egypt sends 14 suspected gay men to jail
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
By Ahmar Mustikhan
Saturday, April 19, 2003
 
SUMMARY: An Egyptian court Thursday sentenced 14 men to jail for one to three years on charges of "practicing debauchery," a euphemism for homosexual activities.
An Egyptian court Thursday sentenced 14 men to jail for one to three years on charges of "practicing debauchery," a euphemism for homosexual activities, the Associated Press reported.
 
They were also ordered to pay fines and remain under police surveillance for one year after completing their jail terms, the AP cited Helmi Al-Rawi, a lawyer who defended some of the accused in the month-long trial, as saying.
 
Of the 14 suspected gay men, three will remain in jail for three years, eight for two years, and three for one year. Two defendants were acquitted. Their arrests came after Egyptian police bugged the phone line of one the first defendants, who was arrested from a Cairo rented apartment in February.
 
Though homosexuality is prohibited in almost all Muslim countries -- punishable by death in Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- Egypt is the only one were law enforcement actually spies upon men suspected of being gay.
 
Homosexuality is not clearly defined as a crime in the Egyptian penal code, but gays are charged under a variety of laws covering obscenity, prostitution and public morality; violation of these laws is punishable by jail terms.
 
On Monday, openly gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., released a letter he wrote to the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, Nabil Fahmy, saying he believed the ambassador lied to him last year when he said that Egypt was not targeting and persecuting gay men.
 
Frank is urging national gay rights organizations to lobby Congress to curb international assistance to Egypt. Frank said in his latest letter to Fahmy, "Egypt must understand that it cannot continue to be so oppressive towards people's human rights and expect us to support these additional (aid) requests."
 
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) condemned Thursday's convictions.
 
"It's a bad day. The way the Egyptian government persecutes gays is a slap in the face of human rights bodies," IGLHRC's Dusty Araujo told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network
 
David Smith of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, which is focused on gay issues within the United States, called the sentencing "horrendous."
"It should not have happened," Smith said.
 
Al Fatiha, the world's first organization for openly queer Muslims, said it would be urging human rights groups and the international community to condemn Egypt for putting the men on trial because of their sexual orientation.
 
Faisal Alam, founder of Al Fatiha, said on Friday afternoon, "We do not know exactly what happened (on Thursday) and are awaiting more information."
 
May 11 will mark the second anniversary of the police raid on the Queen Boat that brought into the limelight the plight of gay men in Egypt.
 
According to Al Fatiha, plans for the weekend of May 9-11, 2003, include protests in front of Egyptian consulates, embassies and government buildings, and writing letters of protest to Egyptian government officials and of support to the arrested gay men. Al Fatiha has also urged fax, phone and e-mail blitzes to the Egyptian government.
Use of 'gay' may block AIDS research
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
By Tom Musbach
Saturday, April 19, 2003
 
SUMMARY: Some AIDS (news - web sites) scientists say they've been warned by federal health officials to keep words like "gay" or "transgender" out of their research grant proposals.
 
Federal health officials have given undocumented warnings to scientists who study AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases to keep words like "gay" and "transgender" out of their grant applications if they wish to receive funds, the New York Times reported on Friday.
 
An anonymous official at the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites) (NIH) told the newspaper that grant applicants had been told by officers at the agency to avoid "sensitive language" when describing their research. The official added that the scrutiny for politically "delicate" words has become, under the Bush administration, "much worse and more intense."
 
Targeted words and phrases include "men who have sex with men," "needle exchange," "anal sex" and "sex workers."
 
Bill Pierce, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) (HHS) which oversees NIH, denied that federal health officers screen grant applications in that way.
 
The article's suggestion that research may be thwarted due to conservative politics distressed some GLBT rights activists and advocates for people with HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS.
 
San Francisco AIDS Foundation spokesman Redge Norton said, "This is very alarming. If it's true, it seems like the (Bush) administration is turning its back on the people and communities who need the research the most."
 
David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest GLBT political group in the country, called the news "outrageous." He said that HRC is investigating the matter.
 
"If it's true, we will take immediate action, and that may include involving Congress," Smith told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network.
 
A University of California researcher told the Times he was advised by an NIH staffer to delete words like "gay" and "transgender" from his grant proposal. The study, however, focused on HIV testing among gay men.
 
"It's hard not to mention them in your abstract," he said.
 
On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites), another branch of HHS, released a revised national HIV prevention strategy aimed at making HIV tests more routine and channeling more prevention efforts toward HIV-positive people. The plan was praised by many, but several AIDS groups cautioned about removing counseling from testing programs.
Melissa Etheridge Engaged
Source: Eonline.com
By Lia Haberman
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
 
Melissa Etheridge is engaged, and David Crosby had nothing to do with it.
The Grammy-winning singer announced her engagement to gal-pal Tammy Lynn Michaels via her rep on Tuesday.
 
The couple, who reportedly started dating two years ago, are planning a holiday 2003 wedding. It'll be a first trip down the aisle for both.
 
After the ceremony, they plan to continue living in Los Angeles, according to Etheridge's spokesman.
 
Etheridge, 41, spent 12 years with former partner Julie Cypher. The two met while Cypher was married to actor Lou Diamond Phillips and was working as assistant director on a music video Etheridge was shooting.
 
They went on to have two children together, Bailey and Becket, each born by Cypher with Crosby contributing his sperm for the cause. The lesbian duo split in 2000.
 
Michaels, 28, is best known for playing high-maintenance princess Nicole Julian on the defunct WB series Popular. She's reportedly signed to star in the Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?, slated for a 2004 release.
 
Etheridge's life has been an open book since the singer-songwriter came out in 1993. Crosby's paternity status was splashed across the cover of Rolling Stone magazine; Etheridge then exorcised the demons of her breakup with Cypher in her 2001 album Skin and later that year disclosed that she'd been sexually abused by her older sister in her book The Truth Is: My Life in Love and Music. Finally, she introduced fans to Michaels last year through her concert video Livend Powerful.
Dutch Activist Gets 18 Years for Fortuyn Murder
Source: Reuters
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
 
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The confessed assassin of Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn was jailed for 18 years on Tuesday for the Netherlands' first political killing in more than three centuries.
 
Animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf, whose trial ended two weeks ago, had admitted to shooting Fortuyn at point-blank range nine days before May 2002 elections that swept the taboo-breaking politician's novice party into power.
 
"The accused went about his plan to kill the victim with calm consideration," presiding judge Frans Bauduin told a high-security court on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
 
The brutal way Fortuyn was killed, the impact on the democratic process, the shaken legal order and the deterrent effect of a sentence were all factors the three judges took into account in determining the penalty, Bauduin said.
 
Prosecutors had demanded a life sentence for Van der Graaf, saying Fortuyn's murder was an attack on democracy itself. Defense lawyers had said the crime should be treated like a "simple murder" and that life in jail was "unthinkable."
 
Fortuyn, 54, a homosexual who courted controversy by calling for an immigration freeze and criticizing Islam, was gunned down outside a radio station in Hilversum, near Amsterdam. Van der Graaf was arrested minutes after the shooting.
 
Van der Graaf, a 33-year-old vegan, said he shot Fortuyn because he saw him as a power-hungry danger to society who "abused democracy" by trying to make scapegoats of vulnerable social groups for his own gain.
 
Van der Graaf, who had no previous convictions, was charged with murder, illegal possession of a firearm and using that weapon to threaten a man who gave chase after the May 6 murder.
 
The Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) swept from nowhere to come second in last May's election, and took a place in a short-lived center-right government.
 
But infighting between two LPF ministers brought down the government last autumn after just 87 days, and new elections held this January saw the LPF lose all but eight of the 26 seats it had grabbed on its election debut.
Giant flag marks Pride symbol's 25th year
Source: Gay.com U.K.
 
SUMMARY: Gilbert Baker, who 25 years ago created the rainbow flag, is giving his creation a makeover by going back to the original eight-color design.
 
Gilbert Baker, who 25 years ago created the rainbow flag, is giving his creation a makeover by going back to the original eight-color design.
 
Baker, who is an artist based in San Francisco, designed the flag as a symbol of pride in the face of anti-gay activities. When it began to be mass-produced, two colors were dropped: turquoise and pink, which at the time couldn't be commercially reproduced.
 
The new flag that Baker is designing in his Key West, Fla., studio will be huge -- nearly one-and-a-half miles long and 16 feet wide.
 
Its unfurling will take place at Key West Pride in Florida on June 15. The flag will be displayed along the entire length of the island's main thoroughfare, which stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean.
 
After that, more than 100 sections of the Flag will be presented to Pride organizations in cities including Los Angeles, Cleveland and Philadelphia.
 
Baker said: "For Rainbow 25, I will restore the rainbow flag to its original eight colors and bring it to cities worldwide -- as my gift to the community that embraced it." Baker is considered by many as the Betsy Ross (who made the first U.S. flag) of the gay community.
 
The new flag is being hand-sewn, like the original. Baker estimates that the flag will need 17,600 linear yards of fabric and weigh more than three tons. He went on to say that 25 miles of seams must be stitched before the project is finished, and it will take 3,000 people to display the flag.
 
The new flag is funded by a nonprofit organization supported by Absolut.
Girl beaten after day of silent protest
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network By David Ryan Alexander
Monday, April 14, 2003
 
SUMMARY: A 16-year-old in Concord, Mass., spent three days in the hospital following an attack that may have been related to her part in a GLBT "day of silence" at school.
 
Caitlin Meuse, a 16-year-old in Concord, Mass., was released from the hospital on Sunday after being treated for injuries from an attack that may have been related to her participation in a GLBT "day of silence" at her high school on Wednesday.
 
Her father, Carl Meuse, told the Boston Globe that she was feeling well enough to visit a friend but that she still suffered memory lapses, including details about the attack. He said that she is "still coming to grips with it. She keeps saying, 'This isn't right, this isn't right.'"
 
A neighbor had found Meuse near her home on Thursday evening, unconscious and bleeding from the head.
 
Police said that Meuse had been struck by a blunt object, possibly a baseball bat. She was held in intensive care at the hospital for two days and was treated for a head injury, missing front teeth, a fractured nose, deep cuts and severe facial swelling.
 
No arrests have been made at this point, but Meuse's brother Brian, 29, said that police were investigating an incident that occurred on Wednesday between Meuse and another student at her school.
 
Witnesses said that a female student shouted derogatory remarks at a group of students that were participating in the Day of Silence, including Meuse. Meuse approached the girl and handed her a written note, after which the girl allegedly called Meuse a lesbian.
 
Meuse's brother also said Meuse is not homosexual. "She's not gay, but she's very open-minded," he said. "If she believes in something, she believes in it 110 percent. If she could do it again tomorrow, she would."
 
The assistant superintendent of the school district, Nadine Brinkley, told the Lowell Sun that as many as one-third of the approximately 1,200 students at Meuse's high school had participated in the organized silent protest.
 
In a statement released Friday, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) said that more than 200,000 students across the country participated in the annual event, remaining silent for the entire day to promote tolerance for GLBT students.
 
A 2001 National School Climate Survey conducted by GLSEN found that "4 out of 5 GLBT students routinely experience verbal, physical or sexual harassment at school."
"Clearly we have much work to do to ensure that all our students are safe, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression," said Kevin Jennings, GLSEN's executive director.
John Paulk Eyes New Ministry Opportunity; Prominent Ex-Gay Spokesman Leaves Focus on the Family
Source: US Newswire
Monday, April 14, 2003 
To: National Desk
Contact: Julie Neils or David Gasak, 719-548-4643, both of Focus on the Family Web site: http://www.family.org E-mail: neilsja@fotf.org
 
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., April 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- John Paulk, whose story about how he overcame homosexuality has inspired millions of Christians worldwide, announced today he will leave Focus on the Family, effective May 6. He has served since 1998 as manager of the ministry's Homosexuality and Gender Department, a position that solidified his standing as one of the ex-gay movement's leading spokesmen.
 
"My time at Focus on the Family has been the most rewarding professional and ministry experience of my life," Paulk said. "I will always have a heart for men and women struggling with homosexuality, but after working 16 years on this contentious issue, it's time for me to pursue other endeavors."
 
Paulk added that while his decision to leave was not an easy one, it was also the best one for his family-wife Anne and sons Timmy, Alex and Jordan. The Paulks are moving to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to extended family.
 
Dr. James Dobson, founder and president of Focus on the Family, applauded Paulk's courage in putting his family ahead of his career-noting it's the same kind of courage he exhibited when he walked away from homosexuality in 1987. "Anyone who has heard John's story knows the miracles the Lord has accomplished in his life," Dobson said. "At considerable personal expense (both to him and his family), and in the face of hostile opposition, John and our Love Won Out team have presented the truth in love to thousands of hurting families and individuals across the country. While we're sad to see him go, we know God has great plans for him, Anne and the boys in the coming days."
 
Paulk was already a prominent figure when he joined Focus. He and wife Anne, a former lesbian and author of a soon-to-be released book Restoring Sexual Identity: Hope for Women Struggling with Same-Sex Attraction (Harvest House), were the centerpieces of a 1998 advertising campaign which consisted of full-page ads in newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal declaring the truth that homosexuality could be overcome. The Paulks also have appeared on the cover of Newsweek and been featured on 60 Minutes, Oprah, Good Morning America and Nightline.
 
Paulk's departure will not affect the future of Love Won Out, the conference he created and took to more than 20 cities in the United States. More than 16,000 people have attended Love Won Out events, all-day seminars that feature psychologists, educators and former homosexuals discussing the causes and prevention of homosexuality. The average attendance at these events has grown by 25 percent over the past six years even as gay activists have intensified their attempts to disrupt the sessions. Gatherings have been planned for the rest of 2003 and 2004, under the direction of Mike Haley, a former homosexual who helped Paulk create Love Won Out and who has been a key speaker since its inception.
 
Paulk has no doubt lives will continue to be touched through the conferences.
"Love Won Out wouldn't be what it is today without Mike," he said. "It makes it easier to step down knowing what an excellent job he and the entire conference staff will continue to do in sharing these important truths with those who need to hear them."
 
------ James C. Dobson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, author, radio broadcaster and the president of Focus on the Family. Founded in 1977, Focus on the Family is a nonprofit Christian organization committed to strengthening the family in the U.S. and throughout the world. Focus on the Family's secular and Christian radio and TV broadcasts are heard or seen by 28 million people a week.
Daytime TV to Get First Lesbian Kiss
Source: Reuters
Monday, April 14, 2003
 
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Daytime television viewers -- considered to be among America's most conservative audiences -- will see their first on-screen lesbian kiss next week, ABC television said on Monday.
 
The kiss will take place during the April 22 episode of the Emmy-award winning soap opera "All My Children," making what ABC said would be a first in the world of daytime television.
 
It comes in a scene featuring gay teen character Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel (news)), who came out as a lesbian in 2000, and her new friend Lena (Olga Sosnovska) who "in a moment of truth and true love ... comes to terms with her feelings."
 
"All My Children" has tackled a number of controversial topics during its 33 years on the air including AIDS (news - web sites), abortion, drug abuse, racial bias and teenage alcoholism.
 
"The theme of 'All My Children' from the beginning is the belief that, as God's children, we are all bound to each other by our common humanity despite our many personal differences; that it is our failure to understand and respect those differences that causes most of life's pain and suffering," said the show's creator, Agnes Nixon, in a statement..
 
"The Bianca story is our latest effort to dramatize that belief," she added.
GOP chief takes heat for 'courting' gays
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
By Ari Bendersky
Saturday, April 12, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The head of the Republican National Committee (news - web sites) is getting flak from party members for meeting with the nation's largest gay rights group.
The head of the Republican National Committee is getting flak from party members for meeting with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest gay rights group in the United States.
 
RNC Chairman Marc Racicot spoke at the HRC's board of directors and governors meeting in March, discussing main issues concerning the gay lobby, President Bush (news - web sites)'s agenda and a need for better inclusion within the party, according to HRC spokesman David Smith. Racicot also said he didn't like gay-baiting ads and said they would not be a tactic of the RNC as far as he was concerned, Smith said.
 
The Log Cabin Republicans (news - web sites), the nation's largest gay and lesbian Republican organization, has praised Racicot for being fair-minded and inclusive. In 2001 when Racicot was appointed to his current position, Log Cabin called him the "right man at the right time for the GOP."
 
However, conservative Republican groups, like the Family Research Council (FRC), are now attacking Racicot, saying he's pandering to the "homosexual agenda," a plan that includes legalization of same-sex marriage, domestic partner benefits for unmarried homosexuals and lesbians, thought crime legislation, and adoption rights for gays, according to the FRC Web site.
 
The FRC also called the meeting between Racicot and the HRC "troubling if it marks any Republican retreat on the defense of marriage and the family."
 
And Focus on the Family reports that Bob Knight (news - web sites), director of the Family and Culture Institute, said, "(Homosexual activists) are building a new headquarters in Washington to promote gay marriage, gay adoption of children, gay programs in the schools -- the kinds of laws that will result in punishing Christians for speaking out against homosexuality. This is the kind of group that Mr. Racicot was courting."
 
The "headquarters" is the new HRC building being constructed in Washington, but as far as it being a place that will create laws to punish Christians, Log Cabin Republican spokesman Mark Mead said it only shows that the gay community, with the lead of the HRC, is becoming part of the mainstream just like any other lobby group.
"Mr. Knight knows this is not the truth. He's trying to marginalize our community by making comments like this," Mead told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. "He has to use this inflammatory rhetoric and he knows better. When you're losing the argument (with mainstream America) you have to turn the heat up."
 
Mead praised Racicot's meeting with the HRC, saying it shows a new open-mindedness in the Republican Party leadership to reach out to all groups of Americans, especially since this was the first time the leader of the RNC met with a gay group.
 
"We're part of the party and we're not going away," Mead said. "Neither party can't not afford to add people to their ranks. You win by addition, not subtraction. Mainstream America is for tolerance and inclusion."
 
HRC's Smith said Racicot's comments weren't an extreme departure from what has been said in the past, but that merely meeting with the gay group was a big move.
 
"I don't see this as the RNC reaching out to the gay community more aggressively," Smith told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. "The first step you take in trying to come together in policy differences is a dialogue. This was a step in that direction."
Europe, activists pressure Egypt on gays
Source: 365Gay.com
By Jon ben Asher
Friday, April 11, 2003
 
SUMMARY: Amnesty International and the European Union (news - web sites) are putting more pressure on Egypt after incidents in the country of snaring and jailing suspected gays via the Internet.
 
Amnesty International has issued an urgent global appeal on behalf of a 26-year-old man who has been imprisoned in Egypt after arranging to meet a man through a popular gay Web site.
 
Wassim Tawfiq Abyad was convicted of "habitual debauchery" and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment after replying to a personals ad on a U.K.-based Web site and setting up a meeting with the man who had placed the ad. It is believed the man was a police informant. E-mail and Web chat exchanges between the two men on were used as evidence against Wissam in court.
 
Amnesty International said Thursday it is very concerned that the Egyptian authorities are pursuing a policy of Internet entrapment to persecute gay men.
 
Also on Thursday, the European Union parliament urged Egypt to "stop persecuting gays and to prohibit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation," according to Agence France-Presse.
 
Nora Cranston, Amnesty International campaigner for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, said: "It's shocking that a man has been locked up in Egypt for exactly the same kind of private communication taken for granted by thousands of men in the U.K."
 
Cranston is calling for a massive letter-writing campaign protesting the use of entrapment to the Egyptian government.
 
"The Egyptian government must receive a clear message from people all over the world that persecution of people for their sexual orientation is unacceptable, and that Internet entrapment is a clear violation of fundamental human rights," Cranston said.
There have been several cases of men being arrested and charged after arranging to meet people they first contacted on the Internet.
 
Although Egypt has repeatedly declared to the United Nations (news - web sites) that "homosexuality is not a criminal offence in itself," Egyptian authorities are engaged in a policy of arresting and imprisoning men on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.
 
More than 50 men were prosecuted for "habitual debauchery," and 21 were imprisoned after being arrested at the Queen Boat nightclub in May 2001.
Connecticut rejects gay partner registry
Source:365Gay.com
By Michael J. Meade
Friday, April 11, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The Connecticut Legislature's judiciary committee (news - web sites) rejected on Wednesday proposed legislation to extend marriage-like rights to same-sex couples.
 
The Connecticut Legislature's judiciary committee rejected on Wednesday proposed legislation to extend marriage-like rights to same-sex couples.
 
The proposal would have extended essentially all the rights of marriage to gay and lesbian couples. If the legislation had become law, it would have established a domestic partnership registry similar to a system created by the California Legislature two years ago, but would not go as far as Vermont's civil union law.
Critics argued that the bill was too sweeping and would have become a catalyst for changing the state's marriage laws.
 
"It seems to me very unclear where this societal change will put us in the next 10 to 20 years," said Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, a staunch opponent of the proposal.
The bill died on a 26-16 vote, which came after nearly three hours of debate.
 
"In my heart, I believe people should have equal rights," said Rep. Juan R. Candelaria, a New Haven Democrat. But his constituents don't agree, he said. "I was elected by those constituents to express their (views)."
 
Much of the debate centered not on civil unions, but marriage. Gay and lesbian activists in the state have repeatedly said they see civil unions as only a stepping stone to full marriage rights.
 
Rep. Themis Klarides, R-Derby, voted in favor of the measure and advised her colleagues not to get too fixated on the concept of marriage. She said her gay and lesbian constituents told her they don't care what it is called; they just want to have the rights that married people do.
 
Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, who is gay and the co-chair of the committee, observed that the word "marriage" strikes an emotional chord with most people. "Our job here today is to try to talk about civil rights that can be afforded by the state."
 
The panel also considered and rejected several amendments, including two expressly stating that Connecticut only recognizes marriage between a man and a woman.
In 2001, the committee held an informal hearing on the topic. Last year, the Legislature approved a bill extending limited rights to same-gender couples.
The Leslie Cheung legend lives on
Source: Taipei Times
By Yu Sen-lun (STAFF REPORTER)
Thursday, April 10, 2003

For 20 years he was one of the Chinese-speaking world's most popular artists, and although he decided to end it all on April 1, he'll never be forgotten.
 
Leslie Cheung's dramatic death marked an end to his colorful life. It also served to cement the legend he built up in the course of his career -- for the high standards he set himself and the bravery he showed in being the first openly gay actor in contemporary Chinese cinema.
 
On screen and stage, Cheung charmed audiences with his androgynous good looks and his wild antics. His concerts were always dramatic -- and so was the manner of his death.
During the rush hour on April 1, Cheung plummeted 24 floors from the gym of the five-star Oriental Mandarin onto the busy streets of Hong Kong's Central district, bringing traffic to a halt.
 
The news of his bloody death shocked Asia, for the 46-year-old star, who had reached the peak of his fame back in the 1980s, still had a solid fan base. Anyone growing up in Hong Kong, Taiwan or China during the 1980s will remember the glamor of his concerts; he remains an idol to many Asian women at their late 20s and 30s, who remember him from the days of A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色, 1986) and A Chinese Ghost Story (倩女幽魂, 1987).
Chinese-language media gave prominent coverage to Cheung's death, three full pages in some instances. Tabloids are already speculating on the reasons behind the tragedy, probing the nuances of the mysterious suicide note and the ups and downs of a long-term gay relationship that turned sour. Such heavy coverage of a celebrity's death is on a par with the media frenzy that surrounded the deaths of singer Teresa Teng (鄧麗君) and action star Bruce Lee (李小龍).
Thousands of fans from around Asia ignored the danger of SARS, traveling to Hong Kong for a final farewell. Tong Hok-tak (唐鶴德), Cheung's long-time partner, performed the role of Cheung's bereaved spouse at the ceremony.
The youngest of ten children of a well-known tailor, Cheung once described his childhood as an unhappy one. He was deeply affected by his parents' divorce and experienced racial discrimination as a student in Leeds, England.
From his childhood, he devoted himself to singing and dreaming. After returning to Hong Kong from the UK, Cheung worked as a sales person in a jeans store and then as a member of staff at a law firm. His break came when he won second prize at a pop contest in 1977, (where he sang American Pie). He jumped into the world of showbiz with his first album, titled Like Dreamin'.
 
The Hong Kong pop music scene of the 1980s emphasized expressive sentiment and romantic tunes, and there was a massive demand for baby-faced stars who were packaged as idols by the music industry. It was in this context that Cheung became popular.
With the 1984 hit Monica, Cheung was launched as a star. In 10 years, he published 18 records, and in 1989, set a record with 33 consecutive concerts.
 
At this time, Cheung's acting career also took off. John Woo's (吳宇森) gangland action drama A Better Tomorrow brought fame to both Chow Yun-fat (周潤發) and Cheung. The success was followed by Tsui Hark's (徐克). The Chinese Ghost Story, in which Cheung successfully managed the transition from impulsive young policeman to romantic lover. In 1988, in Stanley Kwan's (關錦鵬) elegant ghost story, Rouge (胭脂扣), Cheung was clearly a rising star.
In the film, Cheung plays an opera-loving, opium-smoking dandy who falls for a beautiful courtesan. They decide to kill themselves when marriage plans are blocked by family pressure. Cheung's character gets cold feet and he survives. Thirty years later, the ghost of his lover comes in search of him.
 
In real life, Cheung was never a person to get cold feet. He was regarded as a perfectionist by many directors who worked with him, including Tsui Hark and Wang Kar-wai (王家衛). And his standards rose as he became more successful. Wang's 1990 film, Days of Being Wild (阿飛正傳), marks the first recognition of Cheung as a major actor.
In it he plays a self-indulgent prodigal in the 1960s, a slicker who beats up people and enjoys wooing women. A scene in which Cheung narcissisticly dances a solo cha-cha in front of a mirror is reminiscent of John Travolta's self-involved dancing in Saturday Night Fever.
 
Days of Being Wild won Cheung Best Actor in the Hong Kong Academy Awards. It was Cheung's only acting award, despite his numerous nominations at both the Hong Kong Academy and Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards.
 
Cheung's roles are a strange mix of defiance, passion, pride and sophistication -- not unlike his private life. His rebellious, sexy image can be traced back to a 1982 film Nomad (烈火青春) where he boldly played a sex scene in a Hong Kong tram.
At his 1980s concerts, Cheung loved to wear open necked shirts, shiny embroidered suits and feather boas. In 2000, he pushed the limits still further when he got designer Jean-paul Gautier to create female costumes for him, including a short tartan skirt, feminine sandals and toe rings.
 
In the Oscar-nominated Farewell My Concubine (霸王別姬, 1993), Cheung plays an obsessive art lover and artist Cheng Tieh-yi (程蝶衣), who gets his own sexual identity confused with the female roles he plays in Beijing operas. It was a daring role in which Cheung learned to act as a woman. "I am exactly Cheng Tieh-yi," said Cheung before taking the role.
This statement was a prelude to Cheung's official announcement of his sexuality.
The only actually gay character Cheung played was in Wang Kar-wai's 1997 film Happy Together (春光乍洩), in which he has passionate gay sex with Tony Leung (梁朝偉) at the very beginning of the film.
The film won critical acclaim and, during a concert that year, Cheung declared his love for his partner Tong Hock-tak. Before singing the Mandarin love song The Moon is My Heart (月亮代表我的心), he said, "The song is dedicated to my long-time lover Mr. Tong who is in the audience."
The announcement surprised many in the audience but also cleared up a long-time rumor about Cheung's sexuality. Leslie Cheung's brave declaration of his love earned him his place as the first openly gay actor in contemporary Chinese cinema.
 
The years after 2000 were bad years for Hong Kong cinema as well as Cheung's movie career. Between 2000 and 2002, Cheung made four mediocre films, and his most recent, the action film Double Tap (鎗王) and the ghost story Inner Senses (異度空間), Cheung failed to surpass, or even achieve, the quality of acting he achieved in Farewell and Happy Together.
For a star who had always striven to dazzle and who had grown used to a high level of success and praise, it was an especially difficult time. There had even been talk of the 46 year-old actor, who was proud of his boyish image, going bald. He was also rumored to be suffering from insomnia and depression, which some said was linked to evil spirits that dogged the shooting of Inner Senses.
 
Romantic problems, an inability to revisit the artistic heights of Farewell and Happy Together, and a decline of his idol status may all have contributed to his suicide. But, for an actor known to be afraid of heights, his jump from the Oriental Mandarin remains mysterious.
 
"Leslie often joked about being a legend. But I never thought that his legend would be completed in such a dramatic way. We will always remember him," said director Wang Kar-wai.
Education Secretary Paige Under Fire from Gay Group for Comments on Religion and Education
Source: US Newswire Press
Thursday, April 10, 2003
To: National Desk, Education Reporter
Contact: Chadwick Bovee of GLSEN, 212-727-0135 ext. 105
 
NEW YORK, April 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, today demanded clarification from U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige of his comments, published on Monday, suggesting that America's public schools should incorporate Christian values. Secretary Paige's statements appeared in an article entitled, "Rod Paige: America's Education Evangelist" in the Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
 
Secretary Paige's comments appear not only in direct conflict with core American principals separating church and state, but are offensive to the administrators, educators and students of diverse religious faiths who fill America's public schools.
"The language of religious values -- particularly 'Christian values' -- has often been misused to isolate or denigrate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people," said Kevin Jennings, GLSEN's executive director. "For Secretary Paige to suggest that the tenets of any particular religion have a place in public education is an exceedingly dangerous breach of the Constitutional separation of church and state, and of tremendous concern for safe schools advocates who seek to protect LGBT students and staff from harassment, violence and discrimination in schools."
 
In the article, Secretary Paige asserted that Christian schools and Christian universities are growing as a result of a "strong value system" that is lacking in public schools where "there are so many kids with different kinds of values." He offered his prayers to those who disagree with his position that religion has a place in public schools in the United States.
 
Bob Chase, past president of the National Education Association, or NEA, and a member of GLSEN's Board of Directors, expressed deep concern, noting, "Secretary Paige's statement is irresponsible and exhibits insensitivity. As the highest Education official in this nation, he must learn to see diversity as an incredibly rich resource for thought and ideas. The values of hard work, respect and responsibility, values taught every day in America's public schools, transcend any singular set of religious beliefs."
 
Anti-LGBT violence and harassment are all too common in America's schools. GLSEN's 2001 National School Climate Survey found that 4 out of 5 LGBT students report verbal, sexual or physical harassment at school and 30 percent report missing at least a day of school in the past month out of fear for their personal safety.
 
About GLSEN
 
GLSEN, or the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is the leading national education organization focused on creating safe schools for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. Established nationally in 1995, GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. For more information on GLSEN's educator resources, public policy agenda, student organizing programs or development initiatives, visit http://www.glsen.org.
Gay couple seeks asylum in Australia
Source: 365Gay.com
By Peter Hacker
 
SUMMARY: Two gay men from Bangladesh are appealing for Australia to grant them asylum because they fear persecution and violence if they are returned home.
 
Two gay men from Bangladesh are appealing for Australia to grant them asylum because they fear persecution and violence if they are returned home.
 
The couple is under a deportation order. Their applications for asylum to the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal and the Federal Court of Australia were rejected. The case is now before the High Court, Australia's final court of appeal.
 
In turning the couple down, the Review Tribunal said that the men would face no persecution at home "if they were discreet about their homosexuality."
 
Their lawyer, Bruce Levet, told the High Court justices that the tribunal's decision was tantamount to arguing that Holocaust victim Anne Frank was safe from Nazis in World War II as long as she continued to hide in an attic.
 
Levet said the men began living together in Bangladesh in 1994. He told the court that the men were stoned and whipped for their sexuality and that the local Islamic council had issued a fatwa against them.
 
Four years ago they fled to Australia and applied for protection as refugees.
 
The lawyer for the immigration ministry, Ann Duffield, said the government believes "homosexuality is ? not a valid reason for seeking asylum under the U.N. Convention on Refugees."
 
A ruling is not expected for several months.
France will get gay cable TV channel
Source: Planet Out
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
 
SUMMARY: French television viewers will soon be able to watch Pink TV, a cable television channel targeted to a gay audience, the BBC reported.
 
French television viewers will soon be able to watch Pink TV, a cable television channel targeted to a gay audience, the BBC reported.
 
The programming will include drama and comedy shows, films and music videos. The channel also received permission from the Higher Audiovisual Council to broadcast adult content, but only between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m., and the shows must be double-encrypted.
 
Subscribers will have the option to not receive the adult programming, and cable operators will not be able to offer Pink TV in conjunction with channels devoted to children's programming.
 
Pink TV has reportedly committed to investing 23.5 percent of its returns into French-based film and television production.
 
The BBC report did not specify a date for the channel's launch.
 
Canada's PrideVision TV, the world's first cable channel devoted to GLBT programming, has struggled to succeed financially. With approximately 22,000 subscribers after nearly two years, the network put itself up for sale in December.
 
In the United States, the Showtime and MTV networks have collaborated to develop a similar cable channel. Last year an alleged internal memo from Viacom, owner of both networks, suggested the channel will be called "Outlet" and would be available by spring of this year. Network officials, however, refused to comment on those details.
Day of Silence: Support and dissent grow
Source: Planet Out
By Ari Bendersky, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
 
SUMMARY: While thousands of students, teachers and officials gear up for the 2003 Day of Silence, conservative groups are making noise over the silent protest.
 
While thousands of students, teachers and government officials gear up for the 2003 Day of Silence, conservative groups across the United States are making noise over the silent protest.
 
On Wednesday, an estimated 200,000 students in approximately 2,000 participating schools across the country will take a vow of silence in protest against discrimination toward GLBT youth. More than 50,000 additional people will participate in the 2003 Day of Silence than last year, organizers say, showing growing support for creating safe school environments for all students.
 
During the day, many students will don T-shirts or hand out cards explaining their silent behavior. Rallies are also organized across the country from local assembly halls to the floors of state capitols. Additionally, a number of government officials have weighed in to show their support for these students.
 
For the second year in a row, U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., has introduced a resolution that calls on Congress to officially recognize the Day of Silence and its activities on a national level, while California Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites) issued a proclamation for the second year in a row recognizing the day.
 
Davis is joined by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland, a Republican, who designated April 9 as the Day of Silence in their states.
"Sadly, violence and discrimination against GLBT youth is all too common in American schools," Engel said. "Americans needs to know that countless children in this country are deprived of a happy adolescence because of the hurt inflicted upon them by insensitive pupils, teachers and parents."
 
Some conservative groups are trying to upset the silent protests by picketing in front of schools and calling for parents to take a "family day" and remove their kids from school on April 9.
 
Members of the Eagle Forum of Sacramento, Calif., a local chapter of anti-gay activist Phyllis Schlafly's national organization, passed out fliers in front of Elk Grove high schools that read: "Real Americans Do Not Push Homosexuality on Children!" The Eagle Forum claims the Day of Silence will further push the "homosexual agenda" on children, promoting what it calls an "immoral lifestyle."
 
A group calling itself Courageous Christians United (CCU), a conservative religious collective, is calling for a "national ditch day," encouraging parents to take their kids out of school for the day and have a "family day of fun."
 
CCU founder Steve Klein said that homosexuality should not be celebrated, rather students "should be taught the dangers of same-sex relationships," claiming that gay people are exposed to HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS (news - web sites) and STDs. He also implies that gays and lesbians are more prone than straight people to domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and psychological and eating disorders.
 
However, the Day of Silence is meant to combat violence and hatred against GLBT youth, mainly by heterosexual students, teachers and coaches. In 2001, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which is the national sponsor for the Day of Silence, released the National School Climate Survey, showing that more than 4 out of 5 GLBT students reported verbal, sexual or physical harassment in their school, and 30 percent missed at least one day of school because they feared getting beaten.
 
Eliza Byard, GLSEN's deputy executive director, said that despite a few outspoken antagonists, she welcomes the increased support, not only on campuses but also by communities in general and government officials.
 
"The goal of the day is to build school communities that are safe and welcoming of all their members, regardless of sexual orientation or identity," Byard told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network. "I hope that on the Day of Silence, GLBT students across the country will stand with their allies and understand that people across the country are standing with them. I hope (GLBT students) can absorb that kind of support and carry that with them throughout the year."
Courageous Christians United Condemns 'Day of Silence' Homosexual Propaganda Aimed at Kids
Source: US Newswire
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
To: State Desk
Contact: Steve Klein of Courageous Christians United 619-444-6166
 
SAN DIEGO, April 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Courageous Christians United (CCU), a Southern California-based organization with chapters throughout the nation, condemns the upcoming pro-homosexual "Day of Silence" scheduled to take place at public government schools throughout the U.S. on Wednesday, April 9.
 
Founded at the University of Virginia in 1996, the DOS is a day on which pro-"gay" young people and their supporters take a nine-hour vow of silence to highlight injustices supposedly being perpetrated against those who practice sexual perversion of the same-sex variety, according to Courageous Christians United. When questioned by their classroom teachers or school administrators, participants hand out cards or wear stickers or T-shirts explaining why they won't speak.
 
"This silence is ironic considering that sexual deviants, who comprise a tiny percentage of the general population, are among the most vocal and aggressive special-interest groups working to impose their fascist vision of unfettered sexual license on the majority of decent, moral citizens," said CCU executive director Steve Klein.
 
"Furthermore, this silence by students takes place during a taxpayer-funded school day! Taxpayer monies should be used to teach academics, not to indoctrinate impressionable young people," Klein added.
 
Although gay-straight alliance (GSA) clubs are the chief perpetrators of Day of Silence activities, these activities are not confined to the GSA school meeting room. Rather, they affect the entire campus by disrupting many classes and calling positive attention to homosexuality despite parents' best efforts to shield their children from this contentious topic.
 
According to CCU, the DOS also undermines parental authority by urging minor-age students to identify anti-homosexual "opponents," including "peers, relatives, school board members and people in the community who have shown intolerance of LGBT people, or opposition to initiatives supporting LGBT students," according to the official 2003 Day of Silence organizing manual available here.
 
"Instead of celebrating homosexuality, students should be taught the dangers of same-sex relationships. Students caught up in homosexuality are exposed to HIV (news - web sites)/AIDS (news - web sites), STDs, anal and vaginal cancers, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and psychological and eating disorders. Homosexuals must be warned that they are engaging in destructive behavior, not encouraged to continue through activities such as the Day of Silence. They also need to know that they can leave this unhealthy lifestyle through salvation in Jesus Christ coupled with reparative therapy," Klein said.
 
A list of participating schools can be found on the Day of Silence website
Focus on the Family Counters Day of Silence Message; Hundreds of Detroit Residents to Hear Experts Challenge Myths About Homosexuality
Source: US Newswire
Contact:David Gasak of Focus on the Family
Tuesday, April 8, 2003
 
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., April 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- While the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) readies its annual Day of Silence this week, Focus on the Family is making preparations to present information that will help the Detroit community navigate the one-sided messages being presented at such events. The Love Won Out conference, to be held April 26 at Tri-City Christian Center, is primarily led by former homosexual men and women and is designed to help the public understand the underlying roots and causes of homosexuality.
 
Mike Haley, a former homosexual and Love Won Out conference speaker, knows all too well that messages found at events like the Day of Silence can be dangerous. At 16, his high school counselor convinced him he was born gay and should embrace homosexual life. He followed this advice and spent a decade experiencing empty relationships, hopelessness and isolation. After finding change was possible, Haley struggled away from homosexuality and is now married and the father of two.
 
"Hundreds of thousands of young people who wrestle with their sexuality are being encouraged to 'come out' as a cure for their problems," Haley said. "Teens struggling with their sexuality deserve all the facts, and they need responsible guidance from adults. Unfortunately, our culture continues to promote reckless messages that steer adolescents into what is often a dangerous and lonely lifestyle for many."
 
Focus on the Family is actively countering this unbalanced message by hosting national conferences that present the truth that change is possible and offering practical help for those wanting out of homosexuality. The Love Won Out conference features experts in the field of homosexuality and gender identity, such as Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D. President of the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. Dr. Nicolosi has just authored A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality and has appeared on the Fox's News Channel's O'Reilly Factor. Other speakers include Dr. Dick Carpenter, Ph.D., a veteran teacher, principal and college professor; and Jane Boyer, a nurse practitioner and former lesbian.
 
Since its inception in 1998, Focus on the Family's Love Won Out conference has shared its message with more than 16,000 people in 20 different cities and has seen nearly a 25 percent increase in attendance.
 
Haley concluded, "Today's youth constantly hear that homosexuality is genetic and can't be changed and even that it is blessed by God. But I and thousands of others know that this is simply not true and we encourage the public to come hear our side of this controversial topic."
 
More information is available at: www.lovewonout.com
 
[James C. Dobson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, author, radio broadcaster and the president of Focus on the Family. Founded in 1977, Focus on the Family is a nonprofit Christian organization committed to strengthening the family in the U.S. and throughout the world. Focus on the Family's secular and Christian radio and TV broadcasts are heard or seen by 28 million people a week.]
N.D. Law Forbids Unmarried Cohabitation
Source: AP
By Megan Boldt
Sunday, April 6, 2003
 
BISMARCK, N.D. - The state Senate has voted to keep a 113-year-old law that makes it a crime for unmarried couples to live together.
A proposal to repeal the anti-cohabitation law, which says a man and woman may not live together "openly and notoriously" as if they were married, was defeated 26-21 on Tuesday.
 
The offense is listed among other sex crimes, including rape and incest. Violations carry a maximum 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.
"It stands as a reminder that there is right, and there is wrong," said Sen. John Andrist, a Republican. "Just because something can't be enforced, I don't think it necessarily means that we should feel compelled to take a position to take it off the books."
 
Advocates of repealing the law say it is almost never enforced, and doing so would require unorthodox police work.
 
"You're going to have to hire the sex police to get the pictures," said Sen. Linda Christenson, a Democrat. "This is such an intrusion into the privacy of people's relationships and living agreements, that the only way to (prove a crime) is to grossly cross over the boundaries of privacy."
 
The law has been on the books since 1890. It was approved during the first legislative session, the year after North Dakota became a state.
 
Some county prosecutors occasionally receive requests from spouses who want their husbands or wives prosecuted for cohabitation or adultery, which is also a crime.
Census data show that North Dakota has more than 11,000 unmarried couples living together, although the figure includes gay and lesbian couples. The law refers only to one person living with another of the opposite sex.
Study: MBA schools get gay-friendlier
Source: Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
by David Ryan Alexander
Friday, April 4, 2003
 
A recently released study shows that, in the last seven years, the nation's top business schools have increasingly become gay-friendly.
 
One of the most dramatic statistics in the study said that 71 percent of the schools surveyed currently host corporate employers who specifically recruit GLBT students.
 
"Some of the reasons for the change stem from the simple act of coming out," said Jason Lorber, president of Aplomb Consulting, who conducted the nationwide study. "With more openly GLBT students to recruit, corporations can leverage a company's GLBT employee group by hosting a dinner, or even a national conference catering specifically to GLBT MBA students or alumni."
 
This weekend, in fact, the 5th annual GLBT MBA student conference is being held in New York City.
 
Some other findings of the study showed that since 1995, when the survey was last conducted, the number of schools with openly gay professors had increased from 23 percent to 57 percent in 2002, and the number of schools with GLBT student organizations leapt from 50 percent to 86 percent.
 
Although the number of schools providing profile descriptions of GLBT students in admissions brochures increased, it still remained a small 29 percent of schools. Associate dean and director of the MBA program for Stanford University, Sharon Hoffman, said Stanford was one of the first schools to provide such profiles, and it had a positive impact on applicants.
 
"(A student) wrote about the climate at Stanford as a gay student for his profile, and it sent waves through the admissions community," she said. "We saw more people coming out in their applications the subsequent year. On that front we contributed to breaking down a door, which really is the last bastion of acceptable prejudice."
 
The top business schools used in the study were chosen by rankings from Business Week and/or U.S. News & World Report. The schools that ranked highest in the gay-friendly study, Stanford, Harvard and Wharton, were also some of the highest ranked schools by the two publications.
 
In concluding his report, Lorber said, "While their numbers are growing, GLBT students and faculty seldom comprise more than two percent of their school's population, signaling that many are still afraid or uncomfortable coming out of the corporate-to-be-closet. Likewise, transgender visibility and issues are minimally addressed -- if at all -- at the top b-schools."
 
Results of the study were based on more than 100 interviews with business school administrators, faculty, students and alumni from April 2002 to July 2002.
Texas appeals gay couple's divorce
Source: Planet Out
Friday, March 28, 2003
 
SUMMARY: The state of Texas is asking a judge to set aside a divorce granted to a Beaumont gay couple who had been united in a civil ceremony in Vermont.
The state of Texas is asking a judge to set aside a divorce granted to a Beaumont gay couple who had been united in a civil ceremony in Vermont.
 
States rarely become involved in divorce proceedings, but Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says this is "an important Constitutional issue."
 
Abbott has asked state District Judge Tom Mulvaney to vacate his ruling granting John Anthony and Russell Smith a divorce because Texas does not recognize same-sex marriages.
 
"As a matter of law, a court cannot grant a divorce where no marriage existed," Abbott said.
 
Smith, 26, and John Anthony, 34, were united in a civil union in Vermont in February 2002.
 
Smith filed for the divorce saying it was for "financial reasons." Under the Vermont law, which created the first and only civil unions in the United States, people who wish to terminate their unions are required to reside in the state.
 
Smith said it was impossible for him to move to Vermont to officially end the relationship.
 
The couple did not file joint income tax returns, but they did have joint auto and life insurance. The two also ran several businesses together and the division of their assets and properties was done by agreement.
 
Smith's lawyer, Ronnie Cohee, argued before Judge Mulvaney that because the Vermont union was legally binding, it needed to be legally dissolved. She said her legal justification relied on the U.S. Constitution's full faith and credit clause, which requires states to recognize marriages from other states.
 
Cohee also said that even though Texas law refers to a "husband and wife" when talking about marriage, state law refers to ''parties" when addressing dissolution.
Judge Tom Mulvaney agreed and signed the divorce papers.
 
"Texas law does not provide for civil unions, nor does it recognize civil unions established in other jurisdictions," the attorney general wrote in his petition to the court. "Likewise, Texas law does not provide for the dissolution of civil unions established in other jurisdictions."
 
Visit 365 Gay.com for more Canadian and international GLBT news.
Killer of gay couple sentenced to 29 years to life
Source: AP
Friday, March 28, 2003
 
REDDING, California - A white supremacist who admitted killing a gay couple nearly four years ago was sentenced Thursday to 29 years to life in prison.
 
James Tyler Williams, 32, will serve the sentence after he completes a 21-year federal sentence for fire bombing three synagogues and an abortion clinic.
Williams, 32, was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in the shotgun slaying of civic activists Gary Matson, 50, and Winfield Mowder, 40. The two were killed while sleeping at their home in July 1999.
 
Williams' older brother, Matthew, committed suicide in jail last November while awaiting trial for the murders. The younger Williams pleaded guilty to the killings in February.
 
The two were arrested six days after the killings.
 
A month before, the brothers set fire to the synagogues and an abortion clinic in suburban Sacramento. Both entered guilty pleas in that case and were sentenced to federal prison in November 2001.
Dutch Trial Opens for Fortuyn's Murder
Source: AP
By Toby Sterling (AP Writer)
Friday, March 28, 2003
 
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - An animal rights activist who confessed to the first political assassination in modern Dutch history went on trial Thursday for shooting populist politician Pim Fortuyn last year.
 
Volkert van der Graaf, 33, was arrested minutes after Fortuyn was gunned down in a parking lot outside a radio studio on May 6, 2002, just days before general elections. Fortuyn was running for prime minister on an anti-immigration platform.
 
Although Van der Graaf confessed, under Dutch law prosecutors need to present their case to a panel of judges. There are no jury trials in the Netherlands.
 
Van der Graaf was caught with the murder weapon in his pocket and spatters of Fortuyn's blood on his pants. In November, he admitted killing Fortuyn, saying he had been worried the politician was gaining too much power and posed a threat to "vulnerable members of society."
 
He is charged with premeditated murder and faces a maximum face life sentence if convicted. During several days of hearings at a high-security courtroom nicknamed "The Bunker," judges will consider his mental state at the time of the shooting and whether he can be held accountable for his actions.
 
For the public, the trial may provide insight into the character and motives of a man who thrust the country into crisis.
 
Fortuyn, a brash gay academic and columnist, swiftly gained popularity with calls to close the borders to newcomers, at one time calling Islam a "backward religion." His party won more than 10 percent of the electorate and a place in the three-party right-wing governing coalition.
 
After its unprecedented rise, bickering in Fortuyn's party led to the fall of the government and fresh elections in January. With coalition talks ongoing, political stability has yet to return to the country.
 
A graduate of the leading Dutch agriculture university, Van der Graaf went on to become a tough and successful litigator against commercial animal farming. At the time of the murder, he lived with his longtime girlfriend and baby daughter.
In prison, he went on hunger strike for more than two months to protest around-the-clock camera surveillance in his cell.
 
Nearly a year after the assassination, it will be Van der Graaf's first appearance in court, having had his lawyers represent him at several earlier hearings.
He remains the only suspect in the case, although prosecutors never ruled out that he may have worked with others. In raids of the couple's home, police investigators recovered chemicals needed to make explosives and bullets that matched those found at the crime scene.
Study: Most gay teens feel less 'different'
Source: Planet Out
By Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Monday, March 24, 2003
 
SUMMARY: A small U.S. study of young gay males suggests they may undergo "much less angst" during their teen years than previously thought.
 
A small U.S. study of young gay males suggests they may undergo "much less angst" during their teen years than previously thought.
 
In evaluations of the social and psychological well-being of 15 Midwestern gay men between the ages of 16 and 22, an Indiana University researcher said that only two of the subjects viewed their formative experiences as substantially different than those of their non-gay peers. The research probed such factors as relationships with family and friends, romantic explorations and school experiences.
 
Dr. Tom A. Eccles, a pediatrician at the Indiana University School of Medicine, concluded that gay youth "increasingly perceive themselves pretty much like everyone else."
 
"This small qualitative study was an attempt to put this question (gay teen psychosocial development) in the context of normal adolescent development, and by doing a qualitative study we aimed to get information directly from kids themselves about how they felt their development compared to their non-sexual minority peers," Eccles told Reuters Health.
 
Eccles presented his findings this week at the annual meeting of the Society for Adolescent Medicine in Seattle. A female version of the study is currently underway, he said.
 
Eccles suggested that his study might guide physicians, counselors and therapists to not automatically assume that sexual minority status is the source of a gay teen's distress.
Lesbian moms win birth certificate case
By Ann Rostow (Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network)
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
 
SUMMARY: After 15 months of litigation, two Vermont women have obtained a piece of paper that would normally be sent by return mail: their son's birth certificate.
After 15 months of litigation, two Vermont women have finally obtained a piece of paper that would normally be sent by return mail: their son's birth certificate.
The boy was born in Jackson, Miss., in 1997. When he was 8 days old, Cheri Goldstein and Holly Perdue brought him home to Worcester, Vt., where the adoption was finalized in April 2000. One month later, the women applied for a revised birth certificate, a standard document issued to adoptive parents by Mississippi and every other state.
 
In this case, however, although the state statute orders the Bureau of Vital Statistics to fulfill such a request, Mississippi bureaucrats determined that the Legislature could not have intended to sanction a lesbian adoption. In October of 2001, the women sued, with the help of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and their local attorney, J. Cliff Johnson.
 
In an opinion dated March 5 and filed Tuesday, Chancellor William Hale Singletary granted summary judgment to the two mothers, and ordered the state to deliver the document within 10 days of filing.
 
"The Legislature has cast the bureau's duty in mandatory terms," Singletary wrote, "and the bureau has no discretion to deviate from the statute's terms." The law orders the bureau to "prepare a revised birth certificate which shall contain ? the names of the adopting parents and the new name of the child."
 
As for the question of parentage, Singletary cited another section of the code, instructing the State Registrar to "honor orders of courts of other states having appropriate jurisdiction over Mississippi-born persons in matters of adoption." If that weren't enough, he added, Mississippi is also "compelled" by the federal Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause to honor Vermont adoptions.
 
Lambda's Greg Nevins called the ruling "a significant victory" and "an important milestone" in the trend towards recognizing same-sex parents on birth certificates. Just a week ago, he noted, a New Jersey court agreed that two women should both be listed on the certificate of the baby they are expecting in May. In that case, one mother's egg was inseminated and implanted in the other mother's uterus.
9/11 Fund Compensates Lesbian Partner
Woman whose 'soul mate' was killed in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon is awarded $500,000 from a federal victims trust.
Source: Associated Press
Friday, January 24, 2003
 
WASHINGTON -- A federal fund created to compensate victims of the Sept. 11 attacks has awarded $500,000 to the lesbian partner of a woman who died at the Pentagon, a decision gay rights advocates hailed as a milestone.
 
Sheila Hein, 51, a civilian Army management analyst who died when a hijacked American Airlines jet slammed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., was wearing a gold band given to her by Peggy Neff, her partner of 18 years. An emerald ring that had been a gift from Neff was missing from Hein's remains.
 
"It had been pulverized," Neff wrote in an affidavit filed with her federal claim.
"She was my entire world and my soul mate, my closest confidante and my best friend," Neff wrote.
 
Under Virginia laws, Neff was not eligible for state aid. But the head of a Department of Justice fund established after the attacks concluded that Neff was entitled to compensation.
 
Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund, wrote on Nov. 26 that Neff had accepted $557,390.
 
The letter, released this week by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented Neff, was first reported by the Washington Post.
 
Neff's lawyers called the decision "a huge step forward for the federal government."
It was unclear whether the decision set a precedent for other partners of those who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
South Africa: 8 Killed in Massage Parlor
Source: Reuters
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
 
Eight men were killed and two wounded at a gay massage parlor in Cape Town, the police said. A police spokesman, 尒ienne Terblanche, said most of the victims had been found shot dead with their hands tied and throats slit. The police said they were searching for four men in connection with the attack and had no comment on a possible motive.
Boston T Party: HRC Applauds Boston City Council for Passing Transgender Non-Discrimination Ordinance: Bill Is Result of Hard Work and Educational Efforts, Says HRC
Source: Human Rights Campaign
Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2002
 
WASHINGTON - The Human Rights Campaign applauded the Boston City Council today for passing a bill that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression in employment, housing and public accommodations.
 
The margin of victory was lopsided. Nine council members voted in favor of the bill; one voted against it; another council member abstained; and one was not in the room at the time of the vote.
 
"This is a huge victory and an important sign of progress," said HRC National Field Director Seth Kilbourn. "The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition has done an outstanding job educating the City Council and lobbying for this ordinance."
 
"Boston has affirmed its commitment to ending all forms of discrimination," said Cole Thaler of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC). "With the help of HRC, along with the community members who testified for the ordinance at the public hearing, we've helped Boston become safe for all varieties of gender identity and expression."
 
Kylar Broadus, HRC's state legislative manager, and Michael Crawford, HRC's Eastern field organizer, co-presented - with other activists from MTPC, the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force - an advocacy training to help prepare activists to lobby the City Council and deliver testimony at a public hearing. Broadus and HRC Board of Governor Mark Walsh testified in support of the bill. HRC also gave $500 to MTPC. Additionally, HRC mobilized Massachusetts members to get involved in the battle through HRC's Action Center.
 
Fifty-six local jurisdictions prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression. Thanks to the hard work of transgender activists around the country, says HRC, 10 of those ordinances passed in 2002. These jurisdictions are: Allentown, Erie County and Philadelphia, Pa.; Boston; Buffalo and New York, N.Y.; Decatur, Ill.; Dallas; Salem, Ore.; and Tacoma, Wash.
 
Two states - Minnesota and Rhode Island - have statutory prohibitions on gender identity discrimination in employment. Another four states - Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York - prohibit gender identity discrimination in employment through judicial rulings or administrative orders.
 
The Human Rights Campaign is the largest national lesbian and gay political organization, with members throughout the country. It effectively lobbies Congress, provides campaign support and educates the public to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community.
Four Arrested in Connection with Murder of Northern CA Teen. Police Suspect Hate Crime
Source: Glaad News Pop
Friday, Oct. 18, 2002
 
Police in Newark, CA have arrested four young men in connection with the murder of a transgender student, according to reports by local papers and the Associated Press. Authorities have officially identified the victim as 17 year-old Eddie Araujo, who had been missing since Oct. 3. Araujo was last seen attending a party at the home of two of the suspects. The Associated Press reports that Araujo was found Wednesday in a shallow grave near a campground in Placerville, 150 miles Northeast of Newark. Authorities have yet to determine the motive for the murder, but are seriously considering the possibility of this being a hate crime.
 
Ironically, the news comes just weeks before Newark Memorial High School will present the critically acclaimed "Laramie Project," a play that examines how hate crimes affect a community. The play is based on the events surrounding the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Laramie, Wyoming.
 
"Acts of violence are all too common against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth -- even in the liberal Bay Area, said Tina D'Elia, Hate Violence Director of the San Francisco-based Community United Against Violence. "Eddie Araujo was a brave transgender youth, simply trying to be herself. There is so much education we must do, or we'll continue to see attacks like this occurring.''
 
Local news coverage of the incident has also sparked reactions regarding the language used to describe Araujo. Many of the ongoing issues regarding terminology and pronoun usage, as well as language that ostensibly "blames the victim" have been used by a number of media outlets. "Even though these kinds of crimes continue to occur and gain attention from the media, the terminology is still often inaccurate," said Cathy Renna, GLAAD's News Media Director. "A person's sexual orientation and gender identity are distinct, and we will continue to monitor the coverage to ensure that accurate terminolgy is used."

Feedbacks & Suggestions