04.28.06
Posted in Gay Rights at 6:29 pm by pikapp44
“We don’t want to be the 700 Club of gay news,” Jason Bellini says as he sips on a Diet Pepsi in the cafeteria of the CBS Broadcast Center. “The audience wants us to be credible. There are plenty of other outlets out there doing advocacy coverage.”
Bellini, 30, is the anchor of CBS News on Logo, the MTV-owned cable network targeting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender viewers that debuted last summer. CBS News produces four minutes of news each day for Logo: A three-and-a-half-minute newscast and a thirty second news brief. (It also produces periodic specials.) According to executive producer Court Passant, the CBS News-produced content runs more than 30 times each day on the network.
The coverage on CBS News on Logo centers on gay issues – recent story topics include a gay-themed children’s book, arrests in a St. Maarten gay bashing case involving CBS News employees, and the discharge of a lesbian Air Force nurse. But Passant says he and his staff of five “take great pains to make sure we don’t appear to be pandering to the audience.” He adds: “We are not a mouthpiece for the gay community.”
That doesn’t mean they play by the same rules as other media outlets, however. “We get our notions of balance and objectivity from voices within our community,” says Passant. On an issue like gay adoption, he says, that means they don’t have to put a conservative on air to balance the issue, since almost all of those opposed to gay adoption are outside the gay community.
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Posted in Gay Rights at 6:26 pm by pikapp44
The leader of the Union of Reform Judaism spoke at antigay televangelist Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University on Wednesday and called for the acceptance and support of gay and lesbian couples, the JTA news service reports.
“Gay Americans pose no threat to their friends, neighbors, or coworkers, and when two people make a lifelong commitment to each other, we believe it is wrong to deny them the legal guarantees that protect them and their children and benefit the broader society,” Rabbi Eric Yoffie said to shocked murmurs, scattered hisses, and boos at the packed campus stadium in Lynchburg, Va.
Falwell chastised his students, telling them he had never been booed in a synagogue. Aside from that, the reception for Yoffie was warm. Falwell said it was the first time in the 32-year history of Liberty University that a rabbi helped him deliver the weekly convocation.
Yoffie has been a vocal critic of the religious right, and Falwell’s invitation was a signal of reconciliation after some difficult times between evangelicals and Jews. Yoffie began Wednesday’s speech by emphasizing common ground on issues such as Israel and defending persecuted religious minorities overseas. He received warm applause when he praised evangelicals for their resolute opposition to what he called “the moral crisis in America.”
But according to JTA, he also laid out Reform Judaism’s fundaments, including church-state separation, a woman’s right to be the ultimate arbiter about whether to have an abortion, and legal protections for gay couples. Falwell said Yoffie’s tone was as important as his message. “He came across in a loving, respectful way,” Falwell told JTA after the convocation.
Students said they were happy to hear differing views and hoped to find common ground on other issues. “This is an opportunity to respect and recognize as legitimate different viewpoints,” said Jenni Thurman, a sophomore majoring in journalism.
Yoffie said he hoped Wednesday’s appearance was the start of a relationship. “I would hope as we move forward there will be follow-up and there will be coalition building,” he said. But Falwell, who said the idea to invite Yoffie came during an interview with journalist Zev Chafets, was noncommittal about a follow-up. He qualified future relations with those with whom he disagrees: “We can differ on many things not essential to the freedoms in our country.”
Did those “essential” things include the continued denial of legal protections to gay couples? Falwell was evasive. “We do not believe in gay marriage or polygamy or any other family form than a man marrying a woman singly,” he told JTA. (The Advocate)
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Posted in D's Thoughts at 6:23 pm by pikapp44
Rosie O’Donnell is staging a groundbreaking return to daytime TV as she reportedly joins the opinionated roundtable of women on ABC’s The View. O’Donnell would replace Meredith Vieira, who is succeeding the departing Katie Couric as cohost of NBC’s The Today Show.
During the years of her own successful talk show, O’Donnell was dubbed the “queen of nice.” While the star has always maintained that she had never hidden her sexual identity, she was also not out on the air. That all changed when she publicly came out as a powerful and effective activist for LGBT causes, with a special emphasis on gay parenting.
O’Donnell’s reported return to daytime TV now, as an out lesbian mom, is significant in several ways. She would join the ABC morning chatfest as a member of a previously all-heterosexual “girls’ club” that includes Joy Behar, Star Jones Reynolds, and Elizabeth Hasselbeck. And her addition to the cast could be read among The View’s mainstream fan base as a vote of confidence from View founder Barbara Walters, herself a trailblazer among broadcast journalists.
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04.26.06
Posted in Gay Rights at 3:27 pm by pikapp44
Gays and lesbians in Israel have been invited to participate in Holocaust memorial services for the first time. Two members of Jerusalem Open House, the LGBT center, placed a wreath in the name of the gay community at the foot of the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion monument at Yad Vashem, the memorial to the millions who were exterminated by the Nazis.
The Nazi regime was responsible for the murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. Among the other minorities that were pursued by the Nazis were gay people, who were systematically persecuted. The Nazis required what they called “sexual deviants” to wear the pink triangle.
Under Paragraph 175 of the German penal code, which banned sexual intimacy between members of the same gender, an untold number of gays and lesbians were rounded up by the Nazis and send to concentration camps where they were subjected to medical experiments, including lobotomies, and forced to work in labor camps.
The number of gays sent to the camps ranges from 5,000 to 15,000, many of them sent to the gas chambers. (Sirius OutQ News)
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04.25.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:13 pm by pikapp44
A federal judge with the U.S. district court for the district of Massachusetts on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by 12 service members challenging the military’s antigay “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The ban, established in 1993 under the Clinton administration, prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or engaging in homosexual activity.
The service members had argued that the policy violates their constitutional rights to privacy, free speech, and equal protection under the law. However, in court documents the Bush administration argued that Congress, in approving “don’t ask, don’t tell,” recognized that the military is characterized by its own rules and traditions, including some restrictions that would not be accepted in civilian society.
The policy “rationally furthers the government’s interest in maintaining unit cohesion, reducing sexual tensions, and promoting personal privacy,” the government argued.
U.S. district judge George A. O’Toole Jr. on Monday dismissed the suit, brought by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network on behalf of the 12. “We are disappointed in the court’s decision and are reviewing all possible responses,” said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director for SLDN. “We continue to believe the military’s ban is un-American and unconstitutional. There is no reason lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans should be prohibited from serving our country.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” has been upheld by appeals courts in several other jurisdictions. One of the reasons SLDN filed the lawsuit in Boston is that the appeals court there—the first circuit—has never been asked to rule in a case involving the policy. (AP, with additional reporting by The Advocate)
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04.24.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 6:56 pm by pikapp44
A federal judge with the U.S. district court for the district of Massachusetts on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by 12 service members challenging the military’s antigay “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The ban, established in 1993 under the Clinton administration, prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or engaging in homosexual activity.
The service members had argued that the policy violates their constitutional rights to privacy, free speech, and equal protection under the law. However, in court documents the Bush administration argued that Congress, in approving “don’t ask, don’t tell,” recognized that the military is characterized by its own rules and traditions, including some restrictions that would not be accepted in civilian society.
The policy “rationally furthers the government’s interest in maintaining unit cohesion, reducing sexual tensions, and promoting personal privacy,” the government argued.
U.S. district judge George A. O’Toole Jr. on Monday dismissed the suit, brought by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network on behalf of the 12. “We are disappointed in the court’s decision and are reviewing all possible responses,” said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director for SLDN. “We continue to believe the military’s ban is un-American and unconstitutional. There is no reason lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans should be prohibited from serving our country.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” has been upheld by appeals courts in several other jurisdictions. One of the reasons SLDN filed the lawsuit in Boston is that the appeals court there—the first circuit—has never been asked to rule in a case involving the policy. (AP, with additional reporting by The Advocate)
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Posted in Gay Rights at 1:02 pm by pikapp44
(New York City) A swath of organizations including nearly 200 religious groups, congregations and clergy have filed friend of the court briefs supporting same-sex marriage in New York State while Catholics have joined evangelical groups in demanding a federal constitutional amendment barring gay marriage.
New York State’s highest court - the Court of Appeal - will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of state regulations that prevent same-sex couples from marrying on May 31. (story)
In 14 friend-of-the-court briefs filed with the New York Court of Appeals, national and statewide religious and civil rights leaders and organizations urge the court to overturn the law.
Among the briefs was one by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the New York State Psychiatric Association which argues that sexual orientation should not be used to bar same-sex couples from marriage or raising children.
Another, from the National Association of Social Workers, the Child Welfare Fund, and the Association to Benefit Children says that it harms children to prevent their parents from marrying.
A brief from the National Organization for Women, the New York Women’s Bar Association and other women’s groups charging that barring marriage for same-sex couples constitutes sex discrimination.
Religious groups signing the brief include Episcopal, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ and Unitarian churches, and conservative and reform Jewish temples.
“As a pastor who has served several congregations over the past 21 years, I’ve seen first-hand the loving bonds and beautiful families that have grown out of the lasting commitments of gay, lesbian and straight couples,” said the Reverend Steve Clunn of the First United Methodist Church of Schenectady.
“While the U.S. Constitution guarantees that various religious groups will always be free to marry whom they please, I and many of my colleagues long for the day when the state will not stand in the way of our ability to marry same-sex couples.”
But while those religious leaders were supporting same-sex marriage 50 prominent religious leaders, including seven Roman Catholic cardinals and about a half-dozen archbishops, have signed a petition in support of an amendment to the US Constitution to ban same-sex marriage the New York Times reports.
It is the most strident position taken to day by senior officials of the Catholic Church in America, although a number of bishops are heavily involved in state constitutional battles.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has scheduled debate on the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment for the week of June 5.
Last month the Senate Republican Policy Committee distributed to senators a 16-page policy document outlining the GOP arguments for the amendment.
Calling Lambda Legal, the ACLU and Freedom To Marry a “cabal” the report said “It is plain that the same-sex marriage advocates’ campaign through the courts continues unabated. The only way to ensure that the American people, rather than judges, decide this fundamental question about the future of marriage in America is to offer them the opportunity to consider and ratify a constitutional amendment through their state legislatures.”
The proposed amendment is almost identical to one which failed to get enough votes in 2004 - just before the last election. (story) It was reintroduced in January. (story) A House version was reintroduced in March.
To become part of the U.S. Constitution, an amendment must be approved by two-thirds of both the House and Senate and ratified by three-fourths of the states.
Federal law already bans recognition of same-sex unions. The federal Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Frist has said that the law is not enough, adding that the amendment would block “the whims of a few activist judges” from overriding “the common sense of the American people.”
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Posted in Gay Rights at 12:57 pm by pikapp44
NEW YORK—A prominent conservative Jewish leader last week called on his branch of Judaism to lift its ban on gay rabbis, the New York Times reported. Arnold M. Eisen, a Stanford University professor newly named to lead the Jewish Theological Seminary, said he hoped to see out gays admitted to the institution, which is at the heart of Conservative Judaism in the U.S. “My personal position, I’d like to see it possible for gay and lesbian students to be ordained,”
Eisen told the newspaper in an April 10 interview. He declined to take a stance on whether conservative Jewish rabbis should be allowed to preside over same-sex union ceremonies, an issue that leaders of the branch have been debating this year. “I’m going to leave same-sex ceremonies to the rabbis,” he said, noting that some conservative rabbis were already doing them.
The issue of ordaining openly gay rabbis has been bogged down in debate for three years among the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law & Standards and a final recommendation isn’t due until December, at the earliest.
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04.21.06
Posted in D's Thoughts at 12:47 pm by pikapp44
Sen. John McCain’s recent reconciliation with the anti-gay televangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell could impede the fight against a federal constitutional amendment on gay marriage, some political observers fear.
McCain, an Arizona Republican and presumed GOP presidential candidate for 2008, previously opposed moves to amend the Constitution to block states from marrying gay couples.
But recent statements by Falwell indicate that McCain has expressed a willingness to support the Marriage Protection Amendment, which leaves room for states to legislate gay marriage, even as it blocks judges from requiring states to do so. The MPA is scheduled for Senate debate and vote in early June.
Experts said this political shift would enhance McCain’s appeal among conservative and religious voters.
“It sends a message that he’s not hostile to the Christian right,” Wilcox said. “It signals that these people would have some voice in his administration, and he’s not writing them out. He’s acknowledging their legitimacy within the party.”
But some activists fear acknowledgement could lead to acceptance.
Rev. Mel White, the gay former ghostwriter for Falwell and founder of Soulforce, an interfaith movement that supports gay rights, said he hopes McCain doesn’t adopt Falwell’s anti-gay views.
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Posted in Gay Rights at 12:42 pm by pikapp44
At a meeting of the Palm Beach County School Board on April 5, school board chair Tom Lynch referred to gay students as “a protected species.”
The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council has demanded that Lynch apologize for the remark, saying that it dehumanizes gay people by implying that they are a separate species and not part of humanity.
“When another school board member, Dr. Debra Robinson, asked Lynch what he meant by “species,” Lynch replied, “We added sexual orientation” to the school’s anti-harassment policy.
In published reports, Robinson said Lynch’s choice of words bothered her.
Rand Hoch, founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council, e-mailed Lynch a letter demanding that he apologize.
“He was talking about ‘protected classes,’ but when it came to gay people, we became ‘species,’” Hoch said. “To have someone in charge of educating our children refer to one segment of humans as a separate species is appalling. The truth is, we’re all homos-—-homo sapiens. There is no other species of humans.”
Lynch: no degradation intended
Lynch did not respond to repeated phone calls seeking his comment. But he told the Palm Beach Post in its April 8 edition that no slight was intended.
“It wasn’t meant as any kind of degradation,” Lynch said. “It’s actually a very positive comment. I meant we need to protect people we say we’re going to protect. If the word offends somebody, I have no problem apologizing for it.”
But Hoch said that no apology has been forthcoming.
“He could have easily clicked on the ‘reply’ button and responded to my e-mail with an apology and explanation,” Hoch said. “But that hasn’t happened.”
In his letter to Lynch, Hoch wrote, “Gay men and lesbians are parents, children, friends and neighbors. We are not some sub-species of humanity.”
Consistent with anti-gay past
Hoch contended that Lynch’s remark was consistent with his past hostility to gay rights efforts. For example, Lynch voted against adding sexual orientation to the school district’s anti-harassment policy in March 2003.
According to an article in the March 26, 2003, edition of the Boca Raton News, Lynch “objected to including the new language, saying it would create an additional ‘protected class’ and might give rise to more lawsuits.”
“He objected to adding sexual orientation because he claimed it could open the school district up to lawsuits,” Hoch said. “Well, if a kid is beaten up just because another kid thinks he’s gay, there should be a lawsuit.”
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