05.12.06
Posted in D's Thoughts at 1:53 pm by pikapp44
The U.S. House voted Tuesday to restrict demonstrations at military funerals, a measure aimed at a Kansas church group that has carried its anti-gay message to the last rites for those killed in Iraq.
Congress is moving to stop anti-gay protests at the funerals of soldiers killed in the Iraq war.
“We will not allow the repugnant acts of a few to define who we are as Americans,” said Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chair Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) before the 408-3 vote on the “Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act.” Buyer spoke at a news conference joined by motorcyclists who attend military funerals to shield families from the anti-gay protesters.
Protesters, led by Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kan., claim that U.S. military deaths in Iraq are a sign of divine punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuals.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chief sponsor of the bill, said he took up the issue after attending a military funeral in his home state where mourners where greeted by “chants and taunting and some of the most vile things I have ever heard.”
Under the legislation, unapproved demonstrations would be banned at Arlington National Cemetery and other federal burial grounds. It also bars protests within 500 feet of a military cemetery from 60 minutes before to 60 minutes after a funeral if those protests involve disruptive noises or other disturbances.
Those violating the act, which still needs Senate approval, would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison.
The measure urges states to pass similar legislation to cover nonfederal cemeteries. More than a dozen states are considering laws aimed at funeral protesters.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against a new Kentucky law, saying it goes too far in limiting freedom of speech and expression. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) said the House bill was crafted to meet constitutional standards for “a reasonable time, place and manner restriction.”
Phelps heads the Westboro Baptist Church, which is not affiliated with a larger denomination and is made up mostly of Phelps’ extended family.
Phelps, in a telephone interview, described Congress as “an American Taliban” is “patently, blatantly violating the First Amendment.” The nation, he said, “is rapidly reduced to having as much liberty as a frog in a snake’s belly.”
He said that if the bill becomes law he will continue to demonstrate but will abide by the 500-foot restriction. During the 1990s, the church group also picketed the funerals of those who died of AIDS and gay murder victim Matthew Shepard.
His group has carried signs saying “God Hates You” and “Thank God for IEDs” — the improvised explosive devices responsible for killing many military personnel in Iraq.
In response, a motorcycle group, the Patriot Guard Riders, has begun appearing at funerals to pay respects to the fallen service member and protect the family from protesters.
“We turn our back to them and let the police deal with them,” said Frank Baranyai, a Navy veteran from Leesburg, Va., who heads the Virginia chapter of the group. He said there are about 30,000 participants nationwide.
The bill is H.R. 5037
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05.11.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 6:09 pm by pikapp44
The Palm Beach County, Fla., school district has blocked student access to numerous Web sites that promote gay rights and support gay youths while allowing access to a host of sites that oppose equality and denounce homosexuality, the Palm Beach Post reports. Many Web sites are off-limits to Palm Beach County students because they promote violence, racism, and pornography, but some people are accusing the district of antigay bias.
Among the sites students are allowed to surf are those for the “ex-gay” group National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, the notoriously antigay Traditional Values Coalition, the American Family Association, and Focus on the Family. But when students or teachers try to log on to gay-positive sites such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; Parents,Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; or the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, they are greeted with a notice that says the site is blocked.
Bob LaRocca, who oversees computer security, told the Post the district’s filtering software automatically blocks sites to comply with the Child Online Protection Act and the Children Internet Protection Act. He also pointed out that content is not the only factor. The district also blocks sites with chat rooms to avoid viruses.
LaRocca he said the sites may be fine for high school students, but concern about younger students accessing them keeps them off-limits for everyone. “Someday, when we can differentiate who is going through the sites, things may change,” he told the Post. “But there is no technology out there to do that. When you have 200,000 users, how do you judge how old someone is? It’s impossible, so we have to treat it so it’s the youngest child.”
Forest Hill High School teacher Michael Wood, who served as the sponsor for Boynton Beach High’s gay-straight alliance last year, said blocking gay advocacy Web sites sends a negative message to students. “One of the things we tell kids is that when you hit the firewall, it’s a bad thing,” he told the Post. “I agree with filtering, but now they are going to see ‘gay/lesbian’ and associate that with something that is bad.”
The censorship prompted the Palm Beach Human Rights Council—access to its site also is blocked—to reach out to the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal, a civil rights group, for help. James Green, an ACLU lawyer, plans to review the case this week. The ACLU has sued in the past over censorship on the Web. In 2002 the Georgia ACLU filed a free-speech lawsuit on behalf of the Gay Guardian newspaper, claiming that a public library banned the newspaper from the library’s free literature area. (The Advocate)
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Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 6:05 pm by pikapp44
Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean admitted Thursday that remarks he made about the Democratic Party platform during a Christian Broadcasting Network interview that aired Wednesday on The 700 Club were incorrect. “The Democratic Party platform from 2004 says that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Dean said during the interview with Pat Robertson. “That’s what it says. I think where we may take exception with some religious leaders is that we believe in inclusion, that everybody deserves to live with dignity and respect, and that equal rights under the law are important.”
In fact, the DNC 2004 platform reads, “We support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits, and protections for these families. In our country, marriage has been defined at the state level for 200 years, and we believe it should continue to be defined there. We repudiate President Bush’s divisive effort to politicize the Constitution by pursuing a ‘Federal Marriage Amendment.’ Our goal is to bring Americans together, not drive them apart.”
On Thursday, Dean issued the following statement: “I misstated the Democratic Party’s platform, which does not say that marriage should be limited to a man and a woman but says the party is committed to full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and leaves the issue to the states to decide. The Democratic Party remains committed to equal protection under the law for all Americans. How we achieve that goal continues to be the subject of a contentious debate, but our party continues to oppose constitutional amendments that seek to short-circuit the debate on how to achieve equality for all Americans.”
The party platform was approved by more than 4,000 elected and at-large Democratic delegates who met in Boston in 2004 to pick a presidential candidate, and there have been no official revisions of the platform since 2004. “Disturbingly, this is not the first time [Dean] has misrepresented this important and affirming plank, and he has been asked before to correct the record and to cease making these misleading statements,” said Matt Foreman, executive director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. (The Advocate)
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05.10.06
Posted in Advocate Articles at 2:13 pm by pikapp44
Gay television company Here Networks has purchased Hyperion Interactive Media Corporation, creator of such Web sites as GayMonkey.com and the print magazine GayWebMonkey. The acquisition was announced Wednesday and includes all of the more than 20 portals and Web sites owned by HIM, which will now be called Here Interactive Media.
“The HIM Corp. properties will reinforce Here as a vital entertainment destination to millions of gay and lesbian consumers,” Paul Colichman, Here Networks founder and CEO, said in a statement. “HIM Corp. is the online bridge by which Here will connect to the infinite places and pathways where the LGBT community finds one another.”
Those properties, which include the popular GayWired.com and LesbiaNation.com, receive a combined 2 million unique visitors a month. HIM Corp. founder Matt Skallerud will continue in his capacity overseeing the sites, and his current staff will remain in place.
The companies are the latest LGBT businesses to unite in the hopes of expanding their mutual marketing reach and audiences. Here is currently available in more than 50 million households around the country.
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05.09.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 3:43 pm by pikapp44
Although senators Bill Frist and Rick Santorum have vowed to bring the Federal Marriage Amendment to a Senate vote the first week of June, a new poll shows that Americans don’t think the issue should be a priority. The poll, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Human Rights Campaign, shows that an amendment outlawing same-sex marriage ranks last on a list of priorities for Congress, after such issues as affordable health care, Iraq, new ethics and lobbying laws, and even an amendment banning flag burning.
“The Federal Marriage Amendment does not rank on the list of voters’ priorities anywhere near where one might expect,” Samantha Smoot, political director for HRC, said at a press conference Monday. “As far as it’s a political ploy, it doesn’t seem so far to be distracting the American public.”
The poll also showed that regardless of how respondents felt about same-sex marriage, 63% of them said they have strong or some concerns about amending the Constitution over the issue. And although the U.S. Catholic Church has recently stepped up its support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, initiating a write-in postcard campaign for its parishioners, 69% of Catholic respondents said they were concerned about the amendment.
And while 53% of respondents favor banning same-sex marriage, only 43% favor banning both marriage and civil unions for gay couples, which the proposed amendment would do. The survey showed that support for civil unions has grown by four percentage points since 2004 to 40%, while support for marriage equality declined two points to 25%.
The survey polled 802 registered voters nationwide in April. It has a margin of error of 3.5%. (The Advocate)
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05.08.06
Posted in Gay Rights at 7:18 pm by pikapp44
A federal appeals court on Friday sidestepped whether it was unconstitutional under federal and state law to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry, leaving the issue to state courts to decide.
The case, brought by two gay Orange County men who were denied a marriage license, leaves Massachusetts as the only state allowing same-sex marriage.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the couple should await the outcome of California litigation challenging the state’s law banning gay nuptials.
A San Francisco trial judge has already declared the marriage ban invalid, but the decision was stayed for review by a state appeals court, which is expected to hear arguments soon.
The federal case challenged both California and federal rules barring same-sex marriage, but the court said the federal judiciary should stay out of the fight for now and leave it to the states.
The federal lawsuit exposed a rift in the same-sex marriage movement, with major civil rights groups opposing it for fear the case could lead the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out assertions that it was unconstitutional to treat homosexuals differently from heterosexuals.
Lambda, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups are waging gay-marriage battles in several states, including California, Iowa, Washington, New Jersey and New York. Without more states recognizing same-sex marriage, Davidson said, the movement does not have a chance before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Despite recent polls showing Americans increasingly accept same-sex marriage, the movement has seen a backlash in the two years since Massachusetts issued marriage licenses and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made a short-lived attempt to allow gays and lesbians to marry at City Hall.
Since 2004, more than a dozen states have approved constitutional bans on same-sex marriage and 19 now outlaw the practice.
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05.06.06
Posted in Gay Rights at 4:22 pm by pikapp44
New polls show that using same-sex marriage as a wedge issue may not work for Republicans in this fall’s mid term election.
A Peter D. Hart poll shows that a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage is at the bottom of voter concerns. Surveys taken for the major networks show that immigration reform and rising gas prices are key concerns.
Only conservative religious groups seem focused on the proposed amendment - and they are threatening to desert the GOP for not passing the measure.
The Hart survey, taken for the Human Rights Campaign last month, before immigration reform and gas prices hit the headlines, and released Friday shows that only 18 percent of perspective voters felt the marriage issue should be a priority for Congress.
The poll showed that the top concerns were affordable health care (55 percent), dealing with Iraq (55 percent), passing new ethics/lobbying laws (25 percent) and passing an amendment banning flag burning (20 percent).
“The Federal Marriage Amendment consistently ranks dead last on a list of voters priorities but that won’t stop Congress from using this discriminatory amendment as a political ploy going into the elections,” Jay Brown, Human Rights Campaign spokesperson told 365Gay.com.
“It’s critical that fair-minded voters speak out,” said Brown. “Our polling shows that when voters move on these issues, it’s toward fairness, not away from it. It’s critical to make that point clear to Congress.”
Opposition to the proposed amendment was strongest among Democrats. Sixty-one percent of respondents who identified as Democrats oppose the amendment, while 49 percent of independents and 20 percent of Republicans oppose it.
Despite calls for the amendment by Catholic Church leaders a majority of Catholic voters say states should make their own marriage laws - 53 - 37 percent.
The Hart poll also found growing support for some form of legal recognition for same-sex couples with 25 percent supporting marriage, 40 percent for civil unions and 33 percent believing there should be no legal recognition.
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05.04.06
Posted in Gay Rights at 6:53 pm by pikapp44
The American Family Association is mounting a campaign against Kraft Foods for its sponsorship of the Gay Games.
The AFA is urging its supporters to call Kraft and express their anger at the sponsorship. “Kraft is ignoring emails. Please make a personal phone call to Kraft and tell them to pull their financial support from the 2006 Gay Games,” the conservative Christian group told its members in a mass email.
The organization began a campaign against Proctor and Gamble in a similar way last year after the Cincinnati-based P&G supported the repeal of an anti-gay law in that city. When the company did not cave in to their demands that it reverse its position AFA began a boycott.
In April AFA declared victory over Proctor & Gamble after the company ended most of its advertising in the gay media. The group claimed that more than 300,000 people had signed pledges not to buy P&G products.
The effect on the company is believed to be one of the major reasons Microsoft decided to withdraw its support of a gay rights bill in Washington following a meeting with a conservative Christian leader. Following outrage from the company’s gay workers and LGBT rights groups in Washington the company reversed course again and announced it would support gay rights measures in the future. Kraft has authorized its company logo to be placed on the Gay Games official website as a major corporate sponsor. The company makes popular products like Kraft Dinner, Kraft Singles, Oreo cookies, Maxwell House coffee, and Ritz Crackers
The Gay Games will take place in Chicago from July 15 - 22. Over 12,000 athletes from more than 100 countries will compete in 30 sports ranging from softball to dancesport, swimming to tennis.
The AFA has a long history of opposing LGBT civil rights. It is a leading supporter of the Federal Marriage Amendment to ban same-sex marriage and helped pass amendments to bar gay marriage in 11 states last November.
In January, it declared popular cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants to be gay. AFA was angry that the character was used in a video for schools aimed at combating discrimination. by Doreen Brandt 365Gay.com Washington Bureau
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05.01.06
Posted in Advocate Articles, Gay Rights at 4:14 pm by pikapp44
Former U.S. senator John Danforth says a conservative push to ban same-sex marriage through a federal constitutional amendment is silly, calling it the latest example of how the political influence of evangelical Christians is hurting the GOP. Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, made the comments in a speech Saturday night in Washington, D.C., to the gay political group Log Cabin Republicans.
He said history has shown that attempts to regulate human behavior with constitutional amendments are misguided. “Once before, the Constitution was amended to try to deal with matters of human behavior; that was prohibition. That was such a flop that that was repealed 13 years later,” Danforth said.
Referring to the marriage amendment, he added that perhaps at some point in history there was a constitutional amendment proposed that was “sillier than this one, but I don’t know of one.”
The Senate is scheduled to vote in June on a constitutional amendment that its supporters hope will head off any decision in the federal courts that could legalize same-sex marriage. The measure would need to be approved by two thirds of those voting in the House and Senate and then be ratified by at least 38 state legislatures.
But Danforth said he is opposed. “The basic concept of the Republican Party is to interpret the Constitution narrowly, not expansively, so that legislatures, and especially state legislatures, can work out over a period of time the social issues in our country,” he said. (AP)
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